


Tales of the Old Republic

by Miri1984



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Biting, Blood, F/F, F/M, Ghost Sex, M/M, Masturbation, NSFW, UST, drabble fics, i guess?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 35,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble fics from various of my characters in SWTOR. Ongoing. Patchy. Occasionally Smutty. Very little plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You would have been wasted as a jedi. All this passion needs an outlet. You are stupid to wish for something that would have destroyed you.”

It wasn’t often, they had time for post coital chats. Their liaisons were usually brief, often outdoors, never relaxed and naked, the way they were here. He didn’t know how she’d managed to arrange so much privacy in the Rishi village, but the elder had seemed all too keen to accommodate her request. Theron hadn’t argued.

He probably should have.

But he was only human.

“What, so you’re saying if I’d had the force, I would have been a Sith?”

She laughed, running a green finger down his chest, tracing a pattern through the dark hairs there. They were wet with sweat and other fluids and force help him, even after all they’d done, he felt a new spark of desire at the look in her eyes. “Grand Master Satele has such a ridiculous idea of what it means to be Sith. Jaesa is the same. Let your passions control you and you become a thing like Barrass. Nothing satisfies you. You grasp for more and more until the grasping is what consumes you. That is the way of a failed Jedi. When they fall, they fall all the harder for having denied themselves for so long.”

“How do you know when you’re falling?” he asked.

She propped an elegant chin on a long fingered, strong hand, elbow sharply wedged in his sternum. She was unconcerned at the pressure she was putting on him, and her violet eyes looked up at him, a smile touching those deep, rich lips.

An image came to him of what she’d been doing with those lips, only a scant few minutes earlier, and the spark of desire that had kindled grew stronger. He shifted his hips, and her smile grew more wicked as she felt him beneath her.

“I suspect you do not,” she said, throwing a leg over him and palming his chest, stretching up so he could see the sinews in her neck and the muscles of her arms as they flexed. “I suspect,” she curled in towards him, breathing on his neck, “that you fall before you understand what falling even means.”

“So…” he fought to keep his voice steady, even as her hips ground against his. “Do you think… you’d ever…?”

She kissed him. He groaned and slid his hands up her thighs.

“Fall?” she breathed in his ear, pushing downwards suddenly and with very. good. aim.

“Gah…. yes…. that.”

“It’s easier to see the bottom when you’re closer to it,” she said, and then she did things that made any further conversation utterly irrelevant.


	2. Fight Or...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aric Jorgan and the Female Republic trooper get trapped in a closet. Because reasons. BASICALLY TROPETASTIC.

The particulars of why they ended up jammed into a supply closet really were beginning to become completely unimportant, considering Aric’s proximity to his CO, considering he’d always believed trooper armor didn’t conduct heat the way it seemed to be doing right now, considering the long, smooth lengths of his CO’s lekku were draped around his forerams like some sort of scarf as she twisted and attempted to adjust her considerable muscle into a more comfortable position while they waited for the Imperial patrol to pass.

Particulars were rapidly retreating into his hind brain as his forebrain kept trying to nudge his vision into tunnels and his claws were uncomfortably pressed against the inside of his gauntlets no matter how much he tried to velvet them.

_Fight,_ his brain kept telling him.  _Or fuck._

_Preferably fuck._

Brilleln shifted again and her hand brushed across the thigh plate of his armor. There was at least an inch of durasteel between her hand and his fur, why in the stars was the fact that her hand was there unbearably hot?

“You okay there, Lieutenant?” her voice was breathy. He told himself it was because she was trying to be as quiet as possible. Their position was precarious. She was definitely not sounding like she’d just run a marathon because she found their position as arousing as he did.

He’d never realised how nice she smelled before now.

“Fine,” he said shortly, although his voice hitched as she moved again. “You need to keep still sir.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Not much room in here.”

Her breath ghosted over his ear. It twitched. He couldn’t have stopped it from doing that if he’d tried.

He could have stopped his hands from finding her waist, and resting there. Kriff but his gauntlets hurt when his claws were out. If he could just take one off…

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off a gauntlet.”

“Why?”

“My… ah… my claws. They’re out.”

“Why?”

“It’s a Cathar thing. Why are your… your tails doing that thing.”

“My lekku.”

One of the … lekku had curled around his forearm almost completely, like some sort of serpent. He wouldn’t deny it was kind of nice, but it was also a bit inconvenient while he tried to get off his gauntlet.

“Yeah why are they…?”

“It’s a twi’lek thing.” Great, now she sounded pissed.

He let out a small groan as she shifted again, and her lek untwined itself from his arm as he freed his gauntlet.

“Ow!” she shot forward as his claws accidentally raked across her lek, he pulled his hand back, cursing under his breath.

“Sorry, sir, sorry I ah…”

She was panting, her head had twisted back towards him and her eyes were wide and dark. “You didn’t… hurt me. Just. Um.”

He swallowed. “What?”

“Don’t… do that again. Please.”

His tongue darted out, tasting the air, even as his nostrils widened and he contemplated exactly what she might mean. The air was so charged between them that they barely noticed when the door of the closet was thrown open and an Imperial foot soldier pointed a blaster at them.

His body was happy enough with fight as it turned out. Although later on he would wish it could have been fuck. 


	3. Appropriate time and place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aric Jorgan has an itch that needs scratching. Unfortunately in a small ship with close crew quarters, finding a place and a time to scratch it is a little difficult.

When he nearly chewed off Elara’s head for interrupting him while he was trying to calibrate the main blasters he realised he was going to have to do something.

It was the tight quarters. It was the fact that he shared those quarters with Tanno Vik, whose least filthy joke involved images that Aric could really do without while following his CO through bug-infested swamps. It was the fact that although Elara had tactfully taken herself to the medbay and usually slept there (unless one of the beds was taken up with wounded, thankfully something that hadn’t happened very often) she still used the crew quarters to store her clothing and equipment that wasn’t medical, so the chances of her walking in at any time were middling to high. It was the fact that Tanno Vik had been smirking at him ever since he’d walked into the crew quarters and found the Weequay with his hand down his pants evidently enjoying doing what Jorgan would very much like to do, thank you very much, since he’d discovered that his attraction to the Captain wasn’t the type of infatuation that could be purged from his system with long runs and target practice.

Vik hadn’t even slowed down. Just looked up and grinned at Jorgan until Jorgan had taken it upon himself to leave.

There was an image that wasn’t going to get out of his head in a hurry.

Thank the stars it hadn’t been the Captain that had walked in. Although Jorgan was almost certain the reaction would have been the same from Vik, perhaps with an invitation for her to join in.

THAT sort of thought process was enough to make his claws extend and a low growl to start in his throat. Twi’leks and humans tended to step back in fear whenever a Cathar made that sound -- some primal instinct of the hunted, he supposed, so he tried his hardest to control his subvocalisations around the Captain and around Dorne, but lately he was losing even that measure of self control, which made his current… mission… all the more important.

The bunks were out of the question. The bridge and the medbay, doubly so. If he could be certain that the Captain wouldn’t walk in, the armory had potential, but lately she had been spending more time there (another reason why he was so… distracted) cleaning her weapons, checking the equipment. She never spoke much, but he had spent long periods studying the surety of her large, blue hands as she stripped her plasma cannon, wearing a standard issue havoc squad tank top and sweatpants, her lekku (he knew they were called lekku now) occasionally twitching as she concentrated, the muscles across her shoulders shifting as she lifted the heavy weapon onto the worktable…

He was not getting very much work done. He needed to DEAL with this.

It was just after their mission to save the Deadeyes from Tatooine that he finally convinced himself that a longer than usual shower was the only solution to his problem. Being jammed in a supply closet with the full bulk of his Captain almost in his lap for near on a quarter of an hour, remembering the sounds she’d made when he’d accidentally brushed against her lekku with his claws (and his subsequent furtive holonet search to find out exactly WHY a twi’lek might find that distracting) had pushed him to a point where he had to do something or, quite literally, burst.

Vik and Dorne were attempting to play cards, although Dorne was, predictably, challenging what Vik knew of the rules. The Captain was in conference with 4X, some wild scheme involving high profile Imperial targets that Jorgan knew he would just be angry hearing about. The coast was clear, and he had sand in parts of his fur that rarely saw sunlight.

He headed for the fresher. It shouldn’t take him long, not considering he was already half hard with anticipation. A few seconds after the water started, and he leaned his head against the fresher wall, relaxing into a pose familiar since his training, one hand curled around his cock, eyes fluttering closed as he remembered the exact timbre of his Captain’s voice as she’d gasped, the feel of her weight under his hands, the way she’d shifted as she…

“Jorgan?”

Fuck. He stilled his hand, still wrapped around his painfully hard cock, as his Captain’s voice interrupted his increasingly urgent daydreaming about his Captain’s voice.

“What?” he ground out. There was a lot of snarl in that response, and he cursed to himself at the silence that it provoked. Hurry up, hurry the fuck up please.

He was so close.

“We’re low on water, Jorgan, Tatooine isn’t exactly the best place to have a long shower.”

He huffed a few breaths, resisting the urge to slam his head against the shower wall. “Understood, Captain,” he said. “I’ll be out ASAP.”

“You do that,” she said.

He waited, ears straining to hear the click of her boots as she retreated. It was only after a few seconds that he felt safe enough to resume the slide of his hand, tightening his fist, beginning to thrust his hips into the small, wet, circle his fingers made.

 _Yes_ , he allowed himself to think of the press of his Captain’s breasts against her tank top. _Yes oh… maker…. ye…._

“Jorgan?”

He didn’t stop himself from slamming his head against the wall this time, and the sound that came out of his throat, while initially supposed to be words, came out as a high pitched, squalling roar.

It echoed.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT, VIK?”

“Hehehehe,” the Weequay’s voice was smug. “Just paying you back, Lieutenant. Just paying you back.”

“Fuck you Vik,” Jorgan said.

“Any time, Lieutenant.” Vik’s footsteps retreated and Aric considered just giving up and getting himself killed on the front line in embarrassment, but as he uncurled his fist, he flashed on a vision of his Captain’s lips, and he swore and doubled timed it.

He didn’t give up on a mission.

When he came, it was supremely unsatisfying, although highly necessary. A measure of his tension was lessened, although not nearly as much as he’d hoped. The hearty clap on his shoulder from Vik when he made his way back into the crew quarters, though, nearly earned him an early discharge.

Murdering your team mates was still frowned upon, in the republic.


	4. R & R

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vik brings Aric a little something to help him relax. It all goes terribly wrong. (of course)  
> I realise these are all very Trooper/Jorgan focused at the moment, the others are coming back (I promise) I just need to get these two out of my system first. You'll see why next chapter.

Brilleln was a light sleeper -- you had to be when you were an active trooper. The payoff was that she could sleep anywhere, also a necessary skill for any soldier, but usually sleeping in her own cabin was the best, because it was uninterrupted, because her bed was a little bit less than regulation hardness, because she was in her own ship with her own crew and her own command. Because she was where she was meant to be.

* * *

 

The low key rumbling didn’t wake her at first, perhaps because it was similar enough to the white noise of the ship. When it came interspersed with bangs and occasional hisses and the unmistakable sound of Aric Jorgan in some sort of mood, however, she finally blinked open her eyes and crawled her way back to consciousness.

Just as her comm beeped.

“Captain,” Elara’s voice sounded less unflappable than normal, and in the background she could hear what she thought was Aric. Growling.

“Dorne. What is it.”

“I need you in the medbay.”

“On my way.” She pulled on sweatpants and an under armor shirt, debated arming herself, but Dorne had sounded upset and whatever was happening to Aric in the background didn’t sound like it was going to be fixed by a blaster.

They’d been in hyperspace for two days, on the way to Coruscant. There was… nothing that could have happened to Aric unless he’d somehow managed to catch a disease or injure himself training or… maybe he’d picked a fight with Vik. 

That thought made her pad towards the medbay barefoot. The Weequay and the Cathar had taken an immediate dislike to each other that seemed to have peaked lately. If it had boiled over they’d both answer to her.

She wouldn’t play favourites, she told herself. If Aric was as much to blame as Vik he’d get an earful.

In the medbay she found a slightly rumpled Elara and a worried looking Tanno Vik attempting to restrain Jorgan to one of the medical beds.

“We need your help, sir,” Dorne said. “He’s out of control.”

“Found him in the crew quarters about an hour ago,” Vik said. “He was just staring at the wall, not moving or anything. Freaked me the fuck out. So I tried to wake him up, and I nudged his arm and then he went nuts. Started jumping on the bunks in the crew quarters, got his claws out, took off his shirt and threw it in the fresher. Then he ran around the ship like he was possessed by something, growling and scratching at the walls. Took me ages to herd him in here.”

“We’re not strong enough to hold him down, sir,” Dorne said. Brilleln blinked, then shook her head, completely nonplussed by the look of Aric, usually so calm and collected, with his claws out, no shirt and making low, deep, huffing growls that were…. actually pretty scary.

She leaned forward and helped Vik hold Jorgan still while Dorne snapped shut the durasteel restraints. Aric’s head whipped round when he felt her hand on his fur, the hard, flat muscles of his arm moving under her hand, and fixed his eyes on hers. There was no gold in them at all -- the colour was completely swallowed by black, and when he saw her the huffing growls turned into a lower, more rumbling sound that seemed to come directly from his chest.

His whole body vibrated with it. It was…. soothing in it’s own way, although she wished she knew what the fuck it meant.

He also relaxed a little, making it easier for Elara to inject him with a sedative. The rumbling sound didn’t lessen, but his eyes started to close.

“Okay people,” Brilleln found she still had her hand on Aric’s fur, absently stroking it in an effort to calm him, and she snatched her hand back, hoping the others hadn’t noticed. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“It’s some sort of Cathar thing,” Vik said. “Got to be.”

Vik’s eyes slid away from hers and Brilleln narrowed hers.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Look, I didn’t know this was going to happen, okay, I was just trying to help him out.”

“Vik. I’m not going to ask again.”

Vik was big, even for a Weequay, but Brilleln had always been the biggest twi’lek in any given group of twi’leks, and Vik knew from sparring with her that she fought dirty. While she wasn’t quite as broad as the Cathar laid out on the table, she knew for a fact she was just as strong, and the better soldier when it came to hand to hand.

Vik knew it too.

He swallowed. Then bared his teeth and reached into a pocket in his fatigues, throwing a small clear bag onto the bench. It was about half empty, full of small, dried leaves.

“What IS this?”

Vik shrugged. “I got it from a merchant on Nar Shadaa. Said it would give a Cathar a good time. They said it wasn’t harmful.”

“Not HARMFUL soldier?” Brilleln wasn’t one to lose her temper, but her XO was currently strapped to a table, sedated to insensibility, shirtless, and…

… purring. She finally realised what that sound was.

Aric Jorgan was purring in his sleep like a lothcat who’d had a nice treat.

“He’s not hurting any of us, is he?” Vik said. “He looks kinda sweet all asleep like that actually.”

“The Captain hasn’t seen what he did to the crew quarters yet,” Dorne said drily, picking up the packet from the bench, emptying the contents out and sorting through them with a pair of tweezers. “Seems to be some sort of herb, sir,” she said. Brilleln was relieved to see her medical officer had gloves on, but she should have realised that Dorne wouldn’t take chances with the sort of chemicals that could induce reactions like they were seeing from Aric.

“Yeah, a  _herb_ that isn’t  _harmful_  okay? The guy at the market just said it would help the Lieutenant relax. Fuck knows he needs to relax a little these days.” Vik gave Brilleln the sort of look that she was pretty sure she was supposed to read something into, but she was too pissed off right now to bother with his games.

“Did he take it willingly, Vik?” she let her eyes bore into the Weequay.

Vik’s eyes slid away from hers. “Kinda,” he mumbled, eventually.

“Elaborate or I’m throwing you out the airlock.”

“I brought it on board. He knows it, he’s had it before. I told him he could have some if he wanted, he said sure. So I put it in his caf.”

Brilleln folded her arms across her chest. “Did you tell him it was in his caf?” she asked.

Vik shifted. “Not exactly.”

“Dammit, Vik.”

Dorne was busy keying in search terms on the holonet, bringing up molecular structures of various plants native to Cathar. “It looks like Vik found our Lieutenant some nipcatarin, Captain,” she said finally.

“Never heard of it,” Brilleln said.

“Basically it’s a non-addictive… ah… narcotic plant that the Cathar use for medicinal and recreational purposes. Small amounts are just as Vik said, a way to relax. But large amounts will…”

“Do what it did to the Lieutenant,” Brilleln said, turning on Vik. From the way he stepped back from him she knew she looked murderous.

Vik held up his hands. “Hey I didn’t know!” he said. “And I was doing it to help you…”

Brilleln had had enough. She slammed Vik into the wall with one elbow, wedging her knee up against his privates in a way that was not at all intimate, and promised a great deal of pain.

“How,” she ground out, between her teeth, “is this helping me, Specialist?”

Vik tried for a good natured chuckle but her elbow was on his windpipe and it turned into a cough. “You two, I dunno, you need to get a room or something. You’ve both been pining over each other for weeks it’s stopping the rest of us from getting any work done, I thought if he just relaxed he might…”

Brilleln felt her cheeks heating and she stepped back, abruptly. “Get out,” she said roughly.

Vik didn’t really look chagrined, but she suspected it was as close as he’d ever come to it. “You want me to space myself or…”

“Just go Vik, and hope I don’t see you before we get to Coruscant or so help me I _will_ throw you out the airlock and you and I won’t drop out of hyperspace first.”

Vik scrambled out of the medbay and the door slid shut behind him. She looked up to see Dorne, wide eyed, looking at her.

“Ah…” she said.

“Let’s concentrate on finding something to bring Jorgan out of this, shall we, Dorne?”

Dorne cleared her throat and regained her customary composure. “I’m afraid from everything I’ve read the only thing we can do is let it run it’s course, Captain,” she said. “All the files say it isn’t at all dangerous to Cathar physiology. Even in a large dose it can’t do anything but… uh… make him… relaxed.”

Brilleln slumped against the spare med cot, rubbing the space between her eyes. “How long until the sedative wears off?” she asked.

“I only gave him a small dose, sir. He should be coming out of it in an hour or so. But I don’t suggest we leave him on his own.”

“No,” she said, glancing towards Jorgan. “No I’ll stay with him, Dorne, I’m medic enough to deal with any difficulties. You get some rest.”

Dorne nodded, swallowing, then gathered up her things and started to leave. “Ah, sir?”

“Yes Dorne?”

“What do you propose we do about Specialist Vik, sir? His actions are clearly a violation of protocol… at the very least…”

“We still need him, Dorne,” Brilleln said. “We can put an official reprimand in his file to join all the others, but otherwise we’re just going to have to live with it.”

“Yes sir,” she said. “I’m… sorry sir.” She turned to leave again, but Brill reached out and touched her arm.

“What he said…” she cleared her throat, looking back at Aric on the cot, “... about… the two of us…”

“I didn’t hear anything, sir,” Dorne said briskly. “I was busy at the medical terminal.”

“Thank you, Dorne.”

She sat in the uncomfortable chair next to the cot that Jorgan slept in, his chest still rising and falling with the deep rumble of his purr. After a moment or two she gave into the urge to put a hand on his arm, telling herself it was to make sure his pulse was steady, that nothing untoward was happening in his system, other than Cathar relaxant herbs.

Her fingers ran through the fur instinctively, enjoying the rough texture, the warmth and feel of his pulse, and Jorgan murmured something, the purr growing louder.

“Lieutenant?” she said, hesitantly. “You coming out of it?”

Jorgan’s nostrils widened and the purr faded, his eyes blinking open still clouded by the nipcatarin and the sedative, but the pupils far less blown. He blinked a few times, turning his head, then looked over to her.

She still had her hand on his arm, she realised. She found she didn’t really want to take it off.

“Captain,” he breathed, his eyes raking over her face, then dipping lower with none of his usual restraint. Heated didn’t even cover half of it, and she felt herself flush. “I feel… I feel like…”

“Vik dosed you with nipcatarin,” she said hastily. “Don’t say anything you might regret.”

Her XO blinked a few times, then let out a low whuffing sound. She knew him well enough by now that she recognised his laughter, although it was higher pitched than usual. Almost…

… a giggle.

“Vik did this to me?” the laughter swelled a little more, and Brilleln’s own lips twitched.

“Dorne says it’s not dangerous. You should be back to normal in a couple of hours.”

“Why am I restrained?”

She debated unclipping them but he wasn’t straining against them at all and she remembered what Dorne said he’d done to the crew quarters.

“You wouldn’t take your medicine, Lieutenant,” she said. “And you were ripping up the crew quarters. Having a good time of it, apparently.”

“Shit,” he said matter of factly, face suddenly deadly serious. Then he giggled again. “I’m going to be really embarrassed about that in few hours.”

“We’ll never talk about it again, Lieutenant, you weren’t yourself.”

He seemed to consider that for a second. “I’m going to kill Vik though,” he said.

“Let’s wait until after we’ve finished our mission, shall we?” she said, smiling with him now. “Then I’ll help you.”

He flexed his arms against the restraints then, and let out a sigh. “We’ll kill him. While we’re not saying anything we’ll regret later,” he said.

She squeezed his arm. “Lieutenant…” she started.

His tongue darted out and he worked his jaw in a yawn. She was always surprised at how wide his mouth could go, the sharpness and size of his teeth. “You’re right,” he said. “I… I think I’m coming out of it. Need to... “ He flexed against the restraints, making a small, frustrated sound. She made a decision and flipped them off -- he seemed calm enough now and there was enough kolto and sedatives on hand for her to deal with him if he decided to rampage again.

“Secure medbay,” she ordered the computer as his restraint unclipped, and Jorgan raised his eyebrow at her as the lock slid into place. Dorne could override it, if she thought there was a medical emergency, but otherwise the only one who could open that door was her.

“Did you just lock us in here, sir?” he asked.

“You’re drugged, lieutenant. And I’m the best equipped to take you in a fight. Not going to put the rest of the crew at risk by letting you outside but there’s no reason why you have to be strapped to the cot any more.”

He sat up, looking at her thoughtfully. He seemed… relatively normal now, save that his breath was coming a little faster. She noticed that his pants were riding low on his hips, that he was barefoot, as she was. “You okay?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “A little buzzed is all.”

“Want to try standing up?” He nodded, and she held out a hand. He stood, swaying a little, took a step towards the door, then stumbled into her.

“Woah,” she said, steadying him with one arm across his shoulders, the other slung around his middle. “You’ve had a sedative on top of whatever that stuff was, you need to take it slow.”

“Slow,” he said, voice low and soft by her ear cone. “That’s how you want to take it, Captain?”

 _Kriff._  One of his hands had found its way to her waist, and they were pressed close enough that she could feel he wasn’t entirely sedated, not by a long shot. His breath was hot against her skin and she could feel an answering fire light in her stomach and move lower.

His claws were out. She could feel them pressing against the cloth of her shirt. Five small, sharp needles against her flesh.

Goddess help her, she almost wanted him to draw blood.

“Lieutenant, I thought we’d agreed we weren’t going to do anything we’d regret.”

 _“Say_  anything,” he corrected. “I wasn’t going to  _say_ anything I’d regret,” but his hand dropped and he steadied himself against the bench rather than against her. She let her own supporting hands drop and reluctantly stepped away. “I should probably sleep,” he said, turning away, leaning forward over the bench, shoulders slumped. She stared at his back, willing him to understand.

She was so close to throwing the rule book out the airlock because of this man.

_The two of you have been pining over each other for weeks…_

Stars knew when this had first started she’d kept it under better control. But that was before she’d worked out that he felt the same way.

Something was giving way.

“Lieutenant,” she said. He looked up, half over his shoulder, not quite meeting her eyes. He looked so tired. “When you’re sober, we’ll talk.” 


	5. Just Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aric Jorgan and Brilleln have sex. Finally. And kinda violently actually. I guess they had some stuff to work through! Notice there was a change in rating. Um. Yeah. Pretty smutty stuff. Much more than my usual.

A mission went wrong. They did, sometimes, but this time, they were stuck in a deep hole on a hellish prison planet surrounded by aliens he’d never even heard of, no comms and little hope of rescue, and six hours to wait.

Comms might not even work in the next rotation. He would have admitted that to himself, when he voiced the idea that perhaps trying again when the night cycle of this fucking planet had passed might help the radio signal get through hundreds of feet of solid rock and ancient prison cells, but he wasn’t going to say that to her, not now, not ever. If they died here, hounded by Eshkar and republic criminals and sith lords… well.

At least they’d die together.

“Something on your mind, Captain?”

She’d been setting up her plasma cannon to charge, busy with trying to stay alive, should the Eshkar break through the rubble before reinforcements arrived.

The reinforcements they weren’t even sure were coming.

She was waiting for an answer from him.

There was actually. Something on his mind. Always was, these days.

“You said…” he cleared his throat. “Back after the incident with the nipcatarin...”

Her hands stilled, no, her whole body stilled. Like prey being hunted, he thought. It was wrong on her. She was never the prey. She looked up at him, eyes narrow, mouth pursed.

“You remember,” she said, flatly.

“I… ah.” He’d said he didn’t. She’d approached him, once he was normal again. She’d been hesitant. Nervous. Other things he’d never seen from her before.

So he’d given her a way out. Told her he didn’t remember. And she’d relaxed and gone back to her duties.

And things had carried on, through two more gruelling planetary missions, recruitments, another promotion. She was a Major now, and she was so far above him, and anything that happened between them would hurt her career too much, never mind what it would do to his.

“I figured… give you a way out. In case you didn’t want it. Want… us.” She didn’t speak, just waited for him to dig his own grave. She did that a lot, with superior officers, with diplomats and enemy soldiers. They liked to talk, and she liked to listen right up to the point where she fired her plasma cannon into their face.

He’d never really been on the other end of it before and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it. “It’s…” he started, then stopped. “Havoc squad,” he said. “It’s yours, your life, and you’re the best at it, you’re brilliant, more brilliant than Tavus ever was, more brilliant than Jace Malcolm. You’re going to be a General one day, one day soon and I’m not going to be the one to screw up your career just because....”  _I want to fuck you more than I want to breathe air right now._

She stood, reaching to undo the clasp on her chestplate. He figured she was going to adjust the straps, get herself battle ready, get some of the endless ash from the spewing volcanoes from underneath the plates, but she didn’t stop at her breastplate.

It hit the floor as she walked towards him, practiced hands undoing the clasps on her greaves. And she kept coming.

“What…” he swallowed, suddenly, painfully hard as the smooth blue of her arms were revealed, as she kicked off her boots and kept walking towards him. “What are you doing?”

“I said we should talk,” she said. Another piece of armor fell to the floor and she deftly pulled her shirt over her head, dropping it to join the pieces even as she backed him up against the wall of the cell.

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t move and she didn’t touch him. She was completely naked now, although his brain was fuzzy on the details of where her underclothes had gone, at which point he’d been able to see the hard muscles of her stomach, the curve of her hips and the point where her thighs met in the middle.

“Well,” she said. They were of a height. She was so close he could smell her breath. Her everything. She smelt like blood and dust and plasma charges and sweat. She smelt like his Major.

 _Fight,_  his brain said to him.

 _No_ , he said back. _No this time I think it’s going to be fuck_.

“Well what?” he said.

“Do you want to talk, Captain?”

He made a decision. If he was honest with himself, he’d made that decision two years ago, the first time he’d looked at her and realised he wasn’t ever going to be happy anywhere but at her side. They had a word for that, the Cathars, and he wasn’t going to think about it, not now, not when there were other things to do.

“No, sir,” he said, reaching for her.

His armour went nearly as quickly as hers had, and suddenly their positions were reversed, she was up against the wall and he had his hands on her waist, on her thighs, his body pressed against hers, hands moving all over every smooth expanse of skin he could find. He mouthed at her neck, discovered that if he teased along her lekku she made the kinds of sounds that would sing him to sleep for weeks to come even if he never got to touch her again, felt her breath and her hands on his chest, around his arms, reaching down to palm his dick and he bucked against her, groaning.

He’d never had cause to complain about having fur before but right now he felt as though insects were crawling under his pelt, he needed to be closer, he needed to be inside her he needed…

“Kriff,” Brill winced and reared back against the wall as he sank teeth into the join between her neck and her shoulder, and Aric tasted blood, a low snarl erupting from him. She didn’t try to fight him off, just grabbed his head and yanked it back, looking him straight in his eyes. “Fuck. Me,” she said, and her voice was hoarse, matching his in pitch and driving him wild.

He reached down, hooking one hand under her thigh and wrenching it upwards, using his other hand to nudge his cock against her. She was wet, so wet and hot and slick and he was so… so hard, sliding in, feeling her around him, yes this, this was what he wanted, skin on skin in skin oh  _stars._

He stopped, panting.

“What are you doing?” she squirmed under him, and even that small movement was almost enough to send him over the edge. _“Move_  soldier.”

“If I do that this is going to be over, Major,” he ground out. “Been…” he moaned as she tried to use the leg that was still hooked around him to force him into action. “Been…  _a long_ …  _long_ few years.”

“Fuck,” she said, thumping the wall behind her so hard he could have sworn it cracked. “Just fuck me, Jorgan,” He shut his eyes, trying desperately to keep control, trying...  _“Do it!”_ she shouted. He opened his eyes as he felt her slide a hand down between them and he thought at first she was going to try to move him that way but no, her fingers found where they were joined and moved upwards and suddenly she was working herself, head thrown back, breath coming in pants and gasps.

He swore, unable to stop himself from thrusting against her, enraptured by her noises, by the feel of her, by her voice and her actions, but it was too much much too much can’t let it can’t end no no… He stilled himself, growling constantly now, teeth bared, needing to _bite, mark, claim.._.

She stopped thumping the wall and instead thumped his back, letting out a squeal of frustration, never slowing her hand. “Obey my _fucking orders_  Captain!”

Words wouldn’t come, and he was hard wired to do as she told him. He grunted and slid his hands under her thighs, lifting her up and slamming her against the wall again, harder than he should have, finally starting to thrust.

“Yes,” she wrapped her legs around his waist, arching her back and pushing her breasts against him as he moved, faster, his whole world reduced to movement of his hips and her hand between them. _“Yes goddess fuck yes right there…_ ”

“I’m…” he couldn’t even finish the sentence, it was too much and he was coming, blinding white and hot and long, and letting out a cry that echoed through the chamber.

She rode him through it, panting and clutching at his shoulders with her free hand, while her other continued to work, furiously between them. Watching her, even as he started his descent down from the peak of sensation, he felt desire spark again as she came apart, shouting her own climax with only slightly less volume than his own.

She continued to move her fingers for a few moments, shuddering through it, lip caught between her teeth, eyes shut, before finally coming to stillness.

He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Stars,” he breathed as she gingerly lowered her legs, resting his forehead against hers and closing his eyes, trying to catch his breath, not willing to move away from her, not yet. She made a pleased murmuring sound, lifting the hand that had been so furiously busy a few seconds before and curling it in the fur of his scalp, strong fingers moving against his skull.

The deep rumble of a purr started in his chest and he wasn’t even embarrassed enough to stop it.

They stayed like that for a long moment, before she shifted a little and he opened his eyes.

“Cramp,” she explained, helping him withdraw with a wince. “Sorry.”

He shook his head as she moved away, working her leg in a circle to get the circulation back. He took a moment to rake his eyes up their long, muscled lengths, all the way to her waist, her breasts, her shoulders…

“Major,” blood was sheeting down from the bite marks he’d left. They were deep, harsh punctures, very red against the dark blue of her skin, even in the half light from the emergency lights. “I’ve hurt you.” he moved forward, cursing himself, cursing everything. Biting a Cathar like that might have broken the skin, but only just. Fur was protection, of a sort. He’d never ever even begun to consider that his Major might be delicate in any way, she could take him in a fight, she could throw Vik on the mat with little more than a grunt of effort (and how satisfying that was to watch was something he’d never bothered to keep to himself) but she was just skin… so much delicate, fragile blue skin and he’d broken it as surely as the assholes who’d scarred her face…

He reached out to touch, to try to… make things right somehow, but she slapped his hand away. “At ease, Captain,” she said, scowling at him.

“You’re bleeding sir.”

“Yeah, and I’d like to enjoy it for a few more minutes, if you don’t mind.”

He blinked, even as she turned to her pack, bending over to show the ten, perfect red streaks of claw marks on the underside of her thighs, where he’d gripped her when they…

...when they….

His cock jerked at the memory, and his eyes started to slip into tunnel vision, even as his jaw dropped in horror at what he’d done to her.

_“Brilleln....”_

She looked up at him, holding a tube of kolto gel in her hand, brown eyes calm and clearer than he’d ever seen them. “Yes, Aric?”

He swallowed. Forced his voice calm. “Are you all right?” he asked. She smirked at him and one of her lekku twitched. He found his mouth going dry and words tumbling out. “If you’re not I swear… when we get out of this I’ll never touch you again, I shouldn’t have… I didn’t…”

She stood up, still gloriously naked. Stars but he’d be ready to go again, if she said it, and he’d last longer this time, and the way she’d said his name just then would be nothing to how she’d shout it when…

Cathar didn’t kiss, not really, not in the way humans and twi’leks did. When your tongue is basically designed to get stubborn dirt out from between strands of thick, winter fur, putting it into another person’s mouth could lead to injuries, even if the other person was also a Cathar. But Brilleln didn’t seem to mind, when she pulled his mouth down to hers, her own tongue swiping against his, tasting, lapping as though he were a drink of water and she’d been thirsty for years.

It took a lot of willpower not to push her back up against the wall right away.

Instead, he pulled his head back up, searching her face.

She held the tube up. “Do we need to use this now?” she asked, voice low. “Or shall we wait until after?”

He didn’t try to repress his growl.

 

His name on her lips when she came was even better than he’d imagined.

 

A trooper’s kit carried basic medical wipes and water for drinking, but if it came to cleaning up after… well. After what they’d done there really wasn’t much that would help other than a good, long shower. Trapped in a collapsed cell in the depths of a Belsavis prison, fresh hot water wasn’t really an option.

They did the best they could with what they had, and Aric pulled on his under armour, mainly because he didn’t want to sit naked on the dust from the rubble they’d created when they’d collapsed the entrance while he attended to Brilleln’s wounds.

Wounds that he’d caused.

He smoothed kolto gel over the scratches on her thighs first so she could pull her pants on while he attended to the more… difficult wounds on her shoulder. She reacted to it like he was giving her some sort of massage, stretching and flexing under his touch as though it was somehow pleasurable.

He wouldn’t deny he was confused, and he opened his mouth a few times to try to frame a question but every time he thought he’d found a way to make it sound… normal… he realised it was going to sound ridiculous.

“I like it,” she said finally, as he was taping a bandage over the deepest of the punctures his teeth had left in her skin. “Look, it’s not something we should do every day, but sometimes pain has it’s place. If you can control it… make it work for you. Well.”

“I’m not going to pretend that I get it entirely sir.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, smiling. It was the most relaxed smile he’d ever seen on her face, and he loved it. “Aric,” she said. “Seriously? You’re not on duty now.”

He opened his mouth. Hesitated. 

“Brilleln,” he said.

She tipped her head up, looking at him with such trust that he felt his heart clench.

That was when comm beeped. 


	6. Satisfaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh... this is an absolute crackship of mine. Quinn is looking for Vopenir and logically the trail leads to Theron. Their meeting doesn't go according to plan.

He guessed he really should have figured Quinn would try to find Vopenir through him -- there were enough traces of their communications to each other after Ziost, enough people knew that the liaison had far from ended on Yavin 4, so seeking him out (while only relatively easier than finding Vopenir herself) was a logical step in the trail he was following. Still it had been a small surprise to see the man walk into a bar on Port Nowhere, more conspicuous out of his uniform than he’d ever seemed in it.

A private chat, in the room where Theron was staying, questions to which Theron only had some of the answers, and one very, very uptight Imperial who seemed entirely too desperate to get back in touch with a woman he had once tried to kill.

“This is going nowhere,” Quinn said, pacing the room. “I know she is alive. I know you know this as well.”

“I don’t know where she is, Quinn,” Theron said. “If I did why would I be here? I’d be out there trying to get her back.”

“You’re not trying hard enough,” Quinn said. “And you’re not telling me everything. I was trained in interrogation by the Empire’s finest…”

“I’ve been through enough pain by Imperial hands, Captain, you don’t need to threaten me and nothing you can do to me is going to make me give you any…”

The pent up energy that Theron had been able to sense coiled in Quinn since he walked into the bar finally spilled over and he surged forward, slamming Theron into the wall of the dingy room, fists scrunched tightly in his jacket.

Theron should have seen it coming.

“I know you know something,” Quinn hissed in his ear.

Theron strained back against the man, testing his strength. While he was sympathetic to his pain he was also enjoying his distress a little -- the man had shot him once, after all.

“I told you I don’t know where she is,” he ground out, shifting a little. Kriff, but the man was all muscle, despite his skinniness, and his grip was like durasteel. Theron moved one leg, trying to find purchase enough to push back, give a little bit of a fight…

… and discovered something fascinating in the Captain’s pants.

He grunted in surprise, dragging his thigh upwards a little in the spirit of exploratory… reconnaissance, causing Quinn to hiss in a breath.

Yep, that was an erection all right. Quite an impressive one at that.

“You…” Quinn’s voice shook. “You will give me satisfaction, or I will wring your miserable neck,” he said.

Theron grinned. “Satisfaction, eh?” he drawled. Quinn shoved Theron back against the wall, panting, creating more friction between them.

Theron wasn’t all that surprised that his own cock twitched in response. Sex had always been something he enjoyed with a touch of danger added, and the idea of fucking… fucking _with_ Quinn had its own appeal. He moved his thigh again, deliberately rubbing against Quinn in ways he knew would infuriate the man, and was rewarded with a shaky groan that was…

...unbelievably hot.

He was beginning to understand what Vopenir had seen in him.

“You miss her a lot,” he said. “I can sympathise.”

“Shut up.”  
“Oh, first you wanted me to talk and now you want me to be quiet, getting some mixed signals here…”

“You’re infuriating.”

“I’m multi-talented.”

“I have no idea what she sees in you,” Quinn snarled, his eyes were wide and dark, his chest was heaving, and that erection was seriously digging into Theron’s thigh. Man was definitely in need of some relief.

Theron was too, if he admitted it.

He’d always had trouble with impulse control, and while it was certainly useful in his line of work to be able to improvise and act without careful planning, what he did next would probably stand as one of the most reckless and idiotic things he’d ever done in his life.

He leaned forward a little, licking his lips, enjoying the way Quinn’s eyes hungrily followed his tongue. Oh yes, there was very little mistaking those signs. “Why don’t you find out?” he said in a low voice, close enough so that his breath touched Quinn’s lips.

Quinn didn’t hesitate, but mashed his lips to Theron’s with so much force that Theron’s teeth almost broke the skin on his lip. Kriff, the passion in the man was like a tidal wave -- hands were suddenly all over him, his waist, his ass, dragging up between his legs, making Theron give a low groan in the back of his throat, around Quinn’s insistent and very talented tongue. Theron was very, very much aware of how long it had been since he’d been with anyone. Was doubly aware that the last person he’d been with was the ex wife of the man who he was currently kissing. But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to care.

He took comfort in the fact that Vopenir would almost certainly approve. Although she’d be upset she wasn’t here to watch.

After not nearly long enough, Quinn pulled his mouth from Theron’s, lips swollen and bitten.

“Do you want this?” he croaked out. “Would that make you give me what I need?”

“I can’t give you what you want,” Theron nearly whined -- Quinn had pulled his entire body away, the iron grip of his hand at the back of his head, pressing Theron’s forehead to his the only place they still touched. He really didn’t want to admit how much he wanted Quinn’s hands back on his body. Didn’t want to. But would. For the sake of… relief. “And yes, I kriffing do want this get back here _please.”_

Quinn gave a quiet chuckle, before squashing Theron back into the wall, one hand reaching between them to deftly undo Theron’s belt. Theron caught his hand. “Wait,” he said. “Do you want this?”

Quinn was an asshole and he’d tried to kill the woman Theron was beginning to realise he loved, but Theron wasn’t going to force him into something he didn’t want, no matter how talented his tongue was.

“You ask stupid questions,” Quinn said, wrenching his hand from Theron’s grip and rapidly undoing his own trousers. “Perhaps you should put something else in that mouth.”

Theron didn’t need to be asked twice, and sank to his knees in front of the Captain. He had a truly magnificent cock, Theron had time to think, thick and straight and long, not that Theron took too much time to admire it before he sucked down as much as he could take in one go.

Quinn groaned and leaned his hands on the wall behind Theron, looking down and watching him as he used all his tricks. Sucking cock was something Theron particularly enjoyed -- he hadn’t had the pleasure for some years, of course, but there were some things you didn’t forget. It was relatively easy to reduce Quinn to a quivering wreck using nothing but his lips and tongue, and as he reached around with his hands to squeeze the Captain’s equally magnificent ass, he took a moment to appreciate Vopenir’s good taste.

Quinn was gasping now, one hand tangled in Theron’s hair, but not exerting any pressure -- surprising etiquette and self control from someone who had once shot him in the leg. He did, however, give a few, impatient thrusts into Theron’s throat, making him gag enough to pull off and stand up.

“Not polite,” he said, spitting to the side, but he replaced his mouth with his hand to show that there were really no hard feelings. Quinn gave a bitter chuckle and backed him up against the wall again, reaching into Theron’s pants with long, delicate fingers.

Oh yes, his hands were just as talented as his tongue had been, and it was only a few seconds later that Theron was bucking his hips, heat pooling in his belly.

Quinn brought his hips in close to Theron’s so their cocks were almost touching, looking down at their hands as they both worked the other. Theron watched him bite his lip and shut his eyes as he came, silently, the sight pulling a heartfelt groan from his own throat before he did the same, his orgasm ripping through him and making his knees buckle.

They panted together for a few moments, before Quinn made a disgusted sound and spun around, stalking to the rudimentary bathroom. Theron pulled up his pants and rolled his eyes, grabbing a tissue from the bedside table to wipe his hands, at least. He felt better than he had for a long time, but wasn’t stupid enough to turn his back on the bathroom door. His hand was on his blaster when Quinn emerged, looking neater, if possible, than he had when he’d first stalked into the bar, save for a lingering flush across his cheekbones.

Theron had done that. It made him smile. Which of course, made Quinn scowl.

“If you have nothing further for me I shall leave,” Quinn said.

“You could always stick around for an hour or so and we could go again,” Theron said. The snarl on Quinn’s face almost made Theron laugh. “I’m kidding,” he said, holding up his hands. “Thanks though. I think that did both of us some good.”

“I never want to see you again,” Quinn said, stalking towards the door.

“Feeling’s mutual,” Theron said. Quinn began to key the door open, when Theron cleared his throat. “Captain,” he said. “Lana found out she’s been taken prisoner by the Eternal Empire. She’s in carbonite, but she’s alive.” Quinn looked back at him, eyes narrow. “We’re working on a way to get her out,” Theron said. “I’ll… let you know when we succeed.”

Quinn gave him a short nod of acknowledgement, but didn’t say another word as he left.

“Great doing business with you,” Theron muttered as the door slid shut. “Now I need a shower.”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally deleted this chapter ooooops so here it is again.

Theron wasn’t a stranger to flirting - hell he’d flirted with the best in the last few years with the SIS - both in a professional capacity (undercover had its perks and it’s disadvantages) and simply for the fun of of it. Faced with a powerful sith lord, who was most definitely and decisively hitting on him, his first instinct had been to run.

_Don’t be ridiculous._

Don’t think about how her eyes twinkle when she smiles, or the fact that she moves with the quiet confidence of a Jedi but none of their habitual restraint. Don’t think about the sith code  _through passion I find strength_  don’t think about how exactly they find that passion.

Don’t be ridiculous, Theron Shan, try for once in your life to fall for someone sensible.

For fuck’s sake.

It was a good thing he and Lana and Jakarro had to disappear. A good thing he wouldn’t be seeing her again, not in the near future, any way.

He didn’t anticipate her catching his arm in the corridor, head tilted on one side, eyes boring into him.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Agent Shan,” she said, but she was smirking. She might not have meant to make him uncomfortable, that smirk said, but she’d definitely take it as a side benefit.

Theron knew how to play this game. “You didn’t,” he said, matching her smirk.

She took a step closer to him, one eyebrow raised. “Oh?”

“I’ll admit, I was a little surprised, that’s all,” he said, admiring the way her robe hugged her hips - remembering what she’d looked like when he first saw her, back from the underwater lab, spattered with blood and damp and dishevelled, but grinning with the joy of a battle won.

She looked intrigued. “Surprised that I might find you attractive?” she said. “Or surprised that you’re attracted to me?”

There was a minefield of a question and no mistake. He shrugged. “It’s been a while,” he said. “The last time someone flirted with me he was trying to blow my cover. Old habits - you probably know how it is.”

“And do you think I’m likely to do that?” she said. “Blow your cover?” He was totally imagining the way she emphasised the word _blow._

“You’re not coming with us,” he said. “So it’s not as though you could do any damage to something we haven’t even worked out yet.”

She grinned and closed the final gap between them, lifting up so she could brush her lips to his.

He kissed her back. There was something for the spirit of cooperation between Republic and Empire after all, and her lips were full and she had a wickedly cheeky smile and he was only human.

The fact that she wielded enough force power to kill him with a gesture shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was, but he’d never been the most sensible person in the world when it came to his personal life.

She looked contemplative when he pulled back, and he knew he wasn’t imagining that her breath came a little faster and the slight flush under her tattoos.

_You’ve still got it, Shan._

“I shall miss you,” she said, then looked past him over his shoulder. “Be sure not to let him get killed, Lana.”

Theron whipped his head around to see the other sith lord, and Jakarro, watching them, Lana with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I’ll do my best,” Lana said dryly.

“Until we meet again,” Vopenir said, inclining her head. Lana bowed to her as she left and Theron put his hands on his hips.

“I wasn’t…” he started as Lana pushed past him.

“Theron I honestly do not care,” Lana said over her shoulder. “We have work to do.”

Jakarro chuckled. “Humans choose mates without logic,” he said. “But she is fierce in battle. Perhaps she can protect you, since you’re so small and fragile.”

“Hey, I’m not fragile,” Theron said.

Jakarro rolled his eyes and didn’t dignify that with a response.

***

Months later, on Rishi, he figured she’d forgotten or had moved on to other more sith like pursuits than flirting with the SIS man. A pity, really. She was attractive in the way a good blaster was attractive, everything well balanced and poised, ready to explode in an enemy’s face.

Also that voice - he wouldn’t pretend it hadn’t shown up in his dreams a few times since they’d left Manaan. Lana and Jakarro’s company, while intelligent (in Lana’s case) and entertaining (in Jakarro’s) had been less than stimulating.

Theron wasn’t exactly against the occasional casual dalliance to take his mind off the fugitive life, but taking up with one of the pirates, smugglers or mercs on Rishi would probably end up being more dangerous than kissing a sith lord, so his not-exactly-by-choice spout of celibacy had been going on for a fairly long time, now. It didn’t help that every time he did meet someone he thought might be interested or interesting enough he was invariably distracted by the memory of dark purple eyes and full green lips and the all pervading and common background theme in his personal life of of  _this-is-an-absolute-disaster-waiting-to-happen-Shan-what-are-you-thinking._

In any case it had been a little gratifying to know that she was still interested, at least in flirting. His ego was stroked, and his imagination had something to occupy itself between spouts of slicing and data analysis that wasn’t as boring as D4′s endless prattle about his missing limbs.

Pirate’s Cove hadn’t been built with easy pedestrian access in mind, but trying to drive a speeder around it’s crooked wooden streets was an exercise in futility. Rishi had no concept of traffic rules, and an irritating habit of flying up into the path of oncoming speeders to investigate how they operated (one of the major disadvantages of a native population that was arboreal), so unless Theron was trying to get somewhere in a particular hurry he preferred to walk.

The twisting wooden walkways often ended in dead end allyways, piled with crates of unidentified produce that was probably booby trapped to explode if you tried to open it without the proper codes and it was from one of those that he heard a familiar voice, a few days after Vopenir had finally managed to follow their ridiculously complicated trail.

“Agent Shan,” if her voice hadn’t been so distinctive he might have been frightened - being hailed by his name from a dark alley rarely precluded anything pleasant in his experience.

He looked up to see Vopenir leaning against a crate. She’d forgone the heavy dark robes and armour she’d worn on Manaan in the heat and humidity of Rishi, and her green arms were bare, adorned with golden bands around her upper arms that accentuated the muscle, the stark black of her tattoos making her look far more fierce than she had when she was more traditionally dressed. It wasn’t difficult to believe their cover story for her of the bloodthirsty pirate overlord, even given her small stature.

“What are you doing back there?” he asked.

“Waiting for you,” she said, “naturally. I thought we should take an opportunity to talk privately.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be heading out to stop Margok?”

“He can wait,” Vopenir said. “Whereas you, on the other hand…” she reached and took hold of his jacket, tugging gently and backing into the alley.

He let himself be pulled, chuckling a little. “You’re a little forward, you know that?”

“I am sith,” she said, backing up against a wall and pulling him flush to her. “I simply know what I want.”

Sure, she did at that. There really wasn’t any point in wasting time, so he bent his head and kissed her, and she responded with a level of enthusiasm that was flattering and a little overwhelming. The next thing he knew she had one leg hooked over his hip and he was pressed firmly against her as she did her best to swallow his mouth, one of her hands tangled in his hair while the other pressed into the small of his back encouraging him to grind against her.

Mmmm. Yes. He’d missed this, and it had been too long.

“So,” he said, “this is in the realm of what you want, then, is it?” He breathed into her ear and kissed just below it. She made a pleased humming sound, then bit him lightly on the jaw.

“Somewhere in the close vicinity,” she said. “And what about you?”

He ran his hands up her sides, cupping her breasts through her tunic. She arched up into his hands and he admired her flexibility. “I have a few ideas,” he said.

“Perhaps I can hazard a guess?”

“Oh yeah?”

She gave him a grin that was unreasonably arousing, not that he needed any more encouragement in that regard, and one hand slid up under his shirt. “Unh..” he said as her fingers found a nipple and twisted. “Well. Maybe we should take this inside…”

She leaned up and whispered into his ear.

“I don’t see why we have to do anything of the sort,” she said, and began to sink to her knees in front of him.

“Wait… what are you… we’re…” she looked up at him, hands on his belt, and raised her eyebrows.

“You would prefer we did not?” she said.

He opened his mouth to say this was dangerous and reckless and completely and utterly failed to say either. He absolutely did not want her to stop. No indeed. He really should though. There was a room not five hundred metres away from them and it had a cot and privacy and… the last vestiges of common sense fled when she leaned forward and mouthed him through the cloth of his pants, and he reached down and touched her cheek, swallowing hard.

“I’ve got… no objections actually. No. None at all.”

He didn’t get this far in the SIS by not taking risks.

Vopenir grinned and deftly undid his belt, chuckling a little when it became evident how little some parts of him objected to the situation. “Why agent Shan,” she whispered, lips close enough to him that he could feel hot breath on his cock, “it seems you _are_  somewhat infatuated with me after all.”

He  _had_  a smart retort to that, he really did, but it died in his throat as she took him into hers, and oh kriff, he didn’t know if it was the force or practice or just natural talent but she was  _good_  at this.

He shut his eyes as she moved her mouth up and down, one small, calloused green hand around he base of him attending to what her mouth couldn’t reach. Heat built up quickly, and while he could appreciate that it would be a little embarrassing to come so fast if they were in any other situation, right now, with the tread of feet on wooden boards so close, the possibility of discovery very real and very immediate, he figured this was one occasion when speed wouldn’t be held against him.

A particularly loud creak of wooden boards near him made him glance out towards the street in sudden panic, but then she did something with her tongue and panic turned into a shaky groan, which in turn provoked a hum of appreciation from her, his cock buried deep in her mouth, and that was almost enough.

“I’m…” he felt himself touch the back of her throat, and words completely failed him for a moment. “Kriff… you need to…” he made a gesture with his hand, pushed at her shoulders, tried to let her know that he was going to come but she just fixed him with her eyes and sucked harder. In a desperate bid to save her he tried pulling his hips back but a strong green hand gripped his ass and pulled him back into her, moaning around him and force,  _stars_ ,  _ **FUCK**_  yes, that was it, he was lost.

She didn’t seem to mind at all. He watched her throat work as she swallowed him down, her hand still firmly gripping him while the other moved around to cup and gently massage his balls until he was completely finished.

Considerate of her, or perhaps she was just trying to keep the streets of Pirate Cove a little cleaner. Either way he wasn’t going to complain.

He fought for breath as the aftershocks made him shudder, brain whiting out on what had just happened.

 _A sith lord just sucked your cock in a pirate alley,_  his brain supplied helpfully.  _Shan, what the fuck are you DOING._

As she pulled off him with an obscene pop and licked her lips he realised he knew exactly what he was doing and none of it was sensible and all of it was hot.

She stood up, neatly pulling up his pants and doing up his belt while he stood there slack jawed like a gaping ginx.

“Ungh,” he said eloquently, and she chuckled. “I mean. Uh. Thanks.”

She straightened his shirt with a business like hand. “And thank you, Agent Shan” she said. “That was most enjoyable.”

 _Be polite, you shit,_  his brain prompted him. “Perhaps now we could take things inside,” he said. “And I can return the favour?” The thought of doing that actually had a lot of appeal right now, he could take his time, get to know that delightful dip between her waist and her hips, find out exactly how extensive her tattoos were, and show her that he wasn’t all about receiving pleasure when it was given. After all, he had given out his fair share in his time.

She chucked him under the chin with one slender finger. “I shall hold you to that as a promise,” she said. “But I have a pirate to kill. Vette is waiting for me. I simply wanted to make sure you missed me while I was gone.”

“Ahem, well,” he smoothed a hand over his hair. “Consider that mission successful.”

She grinned, reaching up to bring his mouth down to hers, kissing him with lips that still faintly tasted of him.

His brain did another brief white-out, force and stars, that was… it wasn’t…

She was ridiculously distracting.

“Good,” she said, then turned and left him in the alley.


	8. Repayment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Bite The Hand prequel scene. Theron repays his debts with a little extra.

A celebration seemed in order once Margok’s data had been downloaded although prizing Theron away from his precious datapad took work. Lana and Jakarro were distracted and Vopenir took the opportunity to run her hands across Theron’s shoulders as he bent over the computer station.

“It looks promising,” he said without looking up. “Torch is definitely set up on this island -- some pretty interesting deliveries…” she leaned down and breathed in his ear, letting her fingers trail up the other side of his neck.

He looked around, somewhat furtively, but there was a glint in his eye and a smile hovering around his lips.

“Were you… thinking to collect on a certain promise?” he said. “Because I’m guessing this party won’t miss us much if we decide to leave.”

She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I will admit to wondering if you would make good on it,” she said. “I have learned over the years not to trust promises made by the republic.”

“Oh, I’m not doing this on behalf of the republic,” he said. “Actually they’d probably disavow me or something if they knew. Hang on… that’s right they’ve already done that so…”

She laughed. “So you have absolutely nothing to lose.”

He shook his head. “Seems not.” He pushed back the chair and stood up, making a show of stretching, then nodded to her. “Come find me,” he said. “And I’ll show you how much my promises are worth.”

Shan’s room was at the back of the safe house -- it was obvious he’d been in residence for some time -- datapads and clothes in piles lying neatly stacked around and a rusted metal fan being powered by a portable generator taking the edge off the humidity. She wondered if it was always as neat (if cluttered) as it was, or if he’d made a cursory attempt at tidying in the few minutes before she’d got here. She wasn’t sure which idea appealed to her more.

He was sitting cross legged in the middle of the mattress, the ever-present datapad in his hand, but looked up as she entered.

“Do you ever stop working?” she asked.

He set the pad aside and smiled up at her. “It’s been known to happen,” he said. “On special occasions.”

She grinned. “What constitutes a special occasion?” she asked. He stood up and reached out a hand to her pulling her close up against him and leaning down to kiss her.

She didn’t see any point in delays, and ran her hands up under his shirt and he pulled it off over his head. He hissed in a breath when she licked up his chest to his nipple, letting out a groan when she rubbed her thigh up between his legs.

“Uh uh,” he chided, when she reached into his loose pants. “I’m repaying you, remember?”

“Well then,” she said, removing her hand and making a show of dusting it off. “Carry on, Agent.”

He took her hands and moved back to the bed, sitting down and pulling her with him. She was amused, but also intrigued when he took off her boots himself, running one hand down her leg to brush over the ball of her foot. She took pleasure in not pulling back, riding through the instinctive tickle. He didn’t kiss her toes, although she almost expected him to, instead eased her pants off her hips while she pulled off her tunic.

She was gratified when he caught his breath, using one finger to trace the line of her tattoos down her shoulder and across to her stomach, then following that path with his mouth until he was settled between her legs, one hand cupped under her thigh.

She’d been with many humans in her time -- aliens on Korriban and Dromund Kaas were the exception, not the rule, and Mirialans were few and far between in Imperial Space. Quinn, though, had been the first of her lovers to linger for more than a few weeks, and she had become accustomed to him. She had never, for example, been afraid of giving Quinn direction -- especially not in the bedroom. While he wasn’t inexperienced, Quinn’s deference had made him easily mouldable -- he responded enthusiastically to orders and she had enjoyed the complete control he offered her in the bedroom.

Lately, he had been exquisitely malleable in that regard, but she also was beginning to recognise that there was something lacking in their sexual interactions. Where once there had been give and take -- a little push against her commands, now he capitulated without question.

She would not pretend she did not know why.

So when Theron pressed his tongue against her, slowly and languidly, one hand still cupped under her thigh and his mouth open and wet and insistent, she resisted the urge to give direction, but simply buried one hand in his hair and let him do as he would. His pace was slower than she would normally like, but his unbridled enjoyment infected her and before long she was breathing hard and enjoying increasingly intense sensations. She must have made some sort of noise, because he hummed against her in appreciation, and the hand that was not holding her steady stroked her stomach and her hip and finally sliding below his mouth as she started to buck her hips. Two long, strong fingers slid inside her and he alternated his mouth with his thumb to bring her almost to the brink, before he lifted his head, grinning at her.

 _“That_  is not a debt repaid,” she gasped out at him, but he didn’t still his hand, and so getting words out was somewhat difficult.

“I was wondering if maybe we could work some sort of exchange…” he said.

“I do not negotiate,” she said.

“Very wise,” he said, pushing upwards with an extra finger, hooking just so, while he dipped his head again, hitting a rhythm that made her shout in sudden, overwhelming pleasure, hands fisting in the sheets and thighs clenching around his head.

He pressed his face more firmly into her as she rode him through her orgasm, breath heaving, his mouth and his hands somehow everywhere she needed them to be and totally unpredictable at the same time. When she finally stilled, lying back on the mattress in the wooden hut, he moved up beside her, one hand propped on his elbow, looking at her with a wide grin all over his smug republic face.

She threw the pillow at him.

He laughed, not bothering to catch it, just throwing it to the side and leaning forward to kiss her.

“So, are we even?” he asked.

She growled under her breath, reaching down to grasp him (and yes, it was gratifying to hear his gasp as she did, eyes fluttering shut).

“One last payment is due,” she hissed, and he nodded, pulling her over so she was straddling him.

A brief interlude for protection and he was sliding into her and groaning, tipping his head upwards and shutting his eyes. She rode him as leisurely as she could bear, knowing how desperate he was for completion -- so very hard inside her, so full of unspent passion. Still he did not move underneath her, simply bit his lip and opened his eyes, watching her as she rocked her hips, one hand gently exploring the hairs on his chest.

“Are you always this passive?” she finally said.

His eyes crinkled at the sides. “Only if you want me to be.” She raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged, sliding his hands up to the small of her back. “Why? What do you want me to be?” His voice was soft, almost hesitant, and she frowned, leaning forward.

“Faster,” she growled out.

“All righty then,” he said, a little breathlessly, gripping her hips. He began to thrust up into her at a pace and an angle that made her moan. She reached around and slid a hand up the inside of his thigh, and she heard him hiss out a breath before he started moving more erratically.

She drank in every expression, every sensation as he came, watching the arch of his back and the flush under his brown skin, then leaned down to taste the sweat at his neck. He was panting, but boneless under her as she shifted off him. He made room for her to lie next to him on the mattress, but she stood up, stretching.

“What,” he said, “you’re not staying?”

She gathered her clothes and started dressing, running one hand down her arm once she had pulled her tunic over her head and lifting her finger to her lips to taste their combined sweat. Humans were so very salty. She liked it. “We all have work to do,” she said.

He was watching her lips, one hand behind his head, and she took a moment to study him in turn. Where Quinn was smooth and chiselled -- marble or stone, all lean muscle and bone and very little hair, Theron was by comparison less finished. No less strength, no, but stockier, with a much thicker dusting of hair over his chest and thighs. Quinn was poised, balanced and directed. Theron was rougher -- coiled like a spring, but like a spring he would flex to adjust to change, where Quinn…

Quinn would break.

She frowned, turning to find her pants, and heard Theron sit up.

“I’m sorry…” he said, “was that… was that okay?”

She didn’t look around. “It was more than sufficient to repay your debt, Agent Shan.”

“Oh?” he sounded disappointed, and she turned, pulling her pants up and buttoning them, to see him with his head tilted to one side, eyes troubled.

She arranged a smile on her face. Moved to his side. Leaned down and kissed him, making sure to be passionate. His hand came up to cup her head, returning the kiss, but he didn’t try to grip her when she moved away, and the disappointment was… mostly gone when she pulled back.

“I shall see you after I have dealt with Torch,” she said.

He nodded, but there was still some confusion in his expression. “I’ll look forward to it,” he said.


	9. Glancing Blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Bite the Hand drabble. Theron's been pulling a lot of aggro in game lately and Vopenir has to use the guard ability on him all the time because he is squishy. This is just an exploration of that :D.

The final droid fell with a hearty metallic groan, and Vopenir pulled her lightsaber free, snapping it off and surveying the floor of the factory with a satisfied smile. Dismantling Arcann’s skytroopers certainly did a lot to improve her mood these days, and the fact that she could feel Valkorian hurt a little bit every time she destroyed something he’d built helped a great deal.

A weak voice from behind her made her frown, however, and she turned to see Theron leaning against a pile of crates, one hand clutching his side.

“Could… use a hand…” he gasped out.

Alarmed, she rushed to his side, sliding under his arm and supporting him to the floor so she could examine his injury.

“They shot you,” she said.

“Believe me I know,” he said. There was a blaster burn across his middle, serious but not fatal. It wouldn’t even scar.

“Why did you let them shoot you?” she asked, pulling bacta patches from the kit on Theron’s belt.

“I didn’t exactly let them,” Theron protested. “But there were a lot of droids, and they were all shooting at me. Aiming and everything.”

“The idea,” she said, through clenched teeth. “Is to kill _them.”_

“Why are you more angry about this than I am?” he asked.

“Because they shouldn’t have shot you. Ugh. This is why you should be wearing armor. Or carrying a lightsaber. Or have a shield, why do you not have a shield…?”

“I have a shield,” he protested weakly.

“Pfft,” she said, taping a bacta patch to his middle hard enough to make him wince. “That shield is useless. Two good shots to it and it overloads.”

“Your shield does exactly the same thing!”

“Which is why _I_  do not get  _shot in the first place.”_

“Hey, hey I seem to remember you getting skewered through the middle with a lightsaber and nobody turned around and blamed you for it, did they?”

She sat back and glared at him.

“You’re worried about me,” he said, a small smile starting on his face. “You think I’m going to get myself killed, so you’re angry with me because you’re frightened.”

She pulled one of his blasters from his belt and pointed it at him. “Tell me again that I am afraid,” she said to him.

He put up his hands, but didn’t seem particularly worried. “Safety’s on,” he said, winking. She cursed.

“I do not use blasters. They are crude and inaccurate.” He held one of his hands out to her. 

“Can I have that back, please?”

She flipped it and shoved it back into his hand, then stood up, adjusting something at her own belt. He caught the tell tale blue of her personal shield as it switched on, but instead of enveloping her in its shell, it was instead, surrounding him.

“There,” she said. “That should keep you relatively safe until we get back to the ship. If you don’t let them shoot you too many times.”

He frowned. “You can’t do that,” he said. “You need it for yourself.”

“I am not the one who was shot.”

“I’m not letting you take a blaster bolt to the middle just because…”

She put her hands on her hips, trying to make him understand. “Shoot me,” she said.

“What?”

“I just gave you back your blaster, now shoot me with it.”

He leaned forward, wincing a little, and looked her in the face. “No,” he said.

She threw up her hands and stalked away. “You can walk,” she said. “Let’s get back to the ship.”

He followed her, slowly, periodically telling her to take the damned shield off him he had his own, and she ignored him. She didn’t try to calm the anger roiling in her gut, nor did she stop to examine its source. It was useful, right now, to keep that fire burning, and when they turned a corner to face an entire squad of skytroopers, she was invigorated.

The snap-hiss of her saber as she ignited it was lost in the flurry of bolts that were upon them. She blocked them all, directing some back into the bodies of the skytroopers, others into the walls and rubble surrounding them. It was a dance and she was familiar enough with it, the force willingly responding to her commands as she drew on the anger within.

When they were done, she turned back to find Theron with both blasters out, obviously having done a fair bit of shooting himself, but with no more obvious signs of injury. He pursed his lips, holstered his blasters, and shook his head.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, so you obviously  _didn’t_  get shot.”

She smiled, still breathing hard from her exertions, and beckoned him closer. “I rigged my shield to protect Vette, after Malavai… left,” she said. “She was not trained in combat the way he was -- I wanted to be certain she would not be hurt. I didn’t do it for you because I assumed the SIS were better at training than the slave pits of Korriban. Obviously I was wrong.”

He shrugged. “Budgetry constraints,” he said. “And I may have skipped a class or two here and there… I was meant to be a spy not a…”

She growled, reaching up to pull his head down for a kiss.

He made a pleased humming sound as she withdrew that made her wish, fervently, that they were closer to the ship.

“I will not allow you to be hurt, Theron Shan,” she said.

“That’s nice,” he said, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Nice to have someone looking out for me.”

“When we get back to Odessan we will initiate a rigorous training regime,” she continued.

“Aaaaaand not so nice.”

“If you had not been shot this would not be necessary,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

The argument continued for some time.


	10. What Helps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set around a year after Vopenir goes into carbonite. Just a little snippet because I'm thinking about Theron being sad and goofy, but mostly sad. Also Bobbi because Bobbi is beautiful.

Work helped.

Well.

Who was he kidding, he’d never had anything but work, so it helping wasn’t actually part of the equation. Work was what he did because she wasn’t there. Work is also what he would have been doing even if she was… unless she wanted to do something else, which… he would totally be up for, because while work helped, other things helped more and it’d had been a loooong time since other things had even been hinted at happening and it was beginning to feel a bit like he’d forgotten how.

“Hey gloomy.”

He looked up to see a familiar face leaning over the terminal. Bobbi Voresh had both hands resting on top of the screen with her chin on them, and her perpetually smiling face did a lot to take his mind off other… greener things.

“Hey cheery,” he said.

“One day you’ll have to not tell me what it is you do in front of those screens all day.”

“You don’t want to know?”

Bobbi grinned. “I have this whole story where you’re lying to us about the work you’re doing and every screen on that thing is displaying stats for your fantasy huttball team.”

He opened his mouth to protest and she reached out and placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t. If you tell me what you’re actually doing I might spontaneously die of boredom.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “I only do fantasy huttball in my spare time,” he said.

“Of which,” she declared, “I know you have none, according to my carefully placed surveillance devices.”

“You don’t have any carefully placed surveillance devices.”

“Watching you painstakingly disable them is the other thing I do in MY spare time. Of which, I’ll have you know, I have a whooooollle lot.”

He leaned back, not bothering to stop the smile that spread over his face. There was something about Bobbi, always had been, that breezy self confidence, that ability to see the best in things even when things were utter shit.

She made things better. And he needed some better right now.

“You’re brooding about the green girlfriend,” Bobbi said.

“I’m working at the same time,” he protested. “It’s not like brooding takes up all my brain cells.”

“Tell that to Corso,” Bobbi said, reaching for his hand. “Come on, come drink with me, Bowdar has sworn off the stuff after last week and I need a buddy.”

“You mean after he smashed through that dejarik table?”

“The dejarik table hit _him_ according to the official documents that I faked, don’t be spreading slander about my favourite Wookiee, Theron.”

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay, no slander that isn’t official, I gotcha.”

She punched his arm. “Come on, Theron.”

He went.

 

The thing about Bobbi Voresh was, she could drink. She could drink… lots. A whole lot. More than he could drink on a bad day and on some bad days he drank… a lot.

But Bobbi could drink more. So you didn’t try to match her, no matter how many shots she shoved into your hands. If you were lucky, Bowdar would be there to take them out of your hands, because while Bobbi could drink, Bowdar was like a wall of fur -- protective of his Captain to the point of making sure she always had a good time, protective of her friends too -- he didn’t want them to end up under the table, robbed blind and missing their pants.

Any way, Theron was in his cups, which was to say, he was passing his cups to Bowdar, when Bobbi slid into the booth next to him and threw an arm around his shoulder.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“Tell me about what?”

“Tell me about your green sith girl, Theron. I’m lonely and old and admittedly a teensy bit lasciviously interested in why the son of Satele Shan ended up pining over a dark force user.”

“I thought you weren’t into romance, Bobbi,” Theron said.

She snorted. “Oh I’m into ROMANCE. Just… you know. Not for me. Other people’s romance is so much easier. Less ‘why don’t you ever holo me’ and more potential for humour.”

“So, you’ve never wanted to spend your life with someone?”

“Sure,” Bobbi leaned back, hands behind her head. “Bowdar. Risha. You on a good day.”

He was surprised at that. And touched. “Really, me?”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “I love you, Theron. Just not…”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know.” He took a long drink, smiling, then looked up and into her blue eyes. “I love you back, Bobbi. Although… you know. Also not.”

She raised her glass. “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll drink to NOT!”

He clinked his glass to hers and echoed the sentiment, getting a few very odd looks from the other patrons in the bar.

She nudged him in the arm. “SO, the sith girl.”

“Girl?”  
“I’m at least twenty years older than her, she’s a girl.”

“You’re not twenty years older than her.”

“Don’t flatter me. I’m as old as I want to be. And that is older than your sith girl.”

Theron rolled his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“I’ve known you for a long time now, right, Theron? We met back when you were a baby in SIS, and you’ve never been one for stable relationships, granted, but you’ve also never been one for… mooning. If it’s over it’s over. So what’s different about her?”

“I really… I don’t know? We started sleeping together before we even knew each other and then she was gone and…”

“Why’d you sleep with her the first time?”

Theron was just drunk enough to answer that, although as the words tumbled out of his mouth he was absolutely certain he would regret them in the morning.

“She uh...  sucked my cock in an alleyway on Rishi.”

Bobbi raised her eyebrows and grinned over the rim of her glass. “Well that explains everything.”

“I’m not… that’s not…”

She patted his arm. “You’re not that kind of boy, I know babe.” She winked. “She must have been good.”

Theron had a very, inappropriately vivid memory of exactly how good that short encounter had been and groaned. “That wasn’t even it, though, that wasn’t it at all, it wasn’t about… well… maybe it was about the sex… a bit… maybe and yeah so there was the thing with her husband and then there was Revan and my mother and…” He looked up to see that Bobbi was laughing, silently and helplessly as he spoke. “What. What is it.”

“I’m just hoping no one is recording this because it’s seriously fucked up, honey.”

 _“I’m_ seriously fucked up,” he said miserably. “I seriously fuck up. Over and over again. Did I ever tell you about the time I ran through a star destroyer naked?”

“Yeah. Yeah you told me that one, sweetcheeks. And you’re not fucked up. Or a fuck up. And you don’t fuck up. All the time. Well, at least, not any more than the rest of us do.”

“I dunno if I even miss her or if I miss something that wasn’t even real, you know? We never… we never said anything to each other. Just. When she was there it felt like…”

“Everything was going to be okay?”

“No! No definitely not.” He laughed. “Far from it. Just. When she was there it felt like… the disasters meant something.”

Bobbi hugged him across the shoulders again. “She’ll show up,” she said. “Beniko is looking for her right? That woman is more focused than a jedi master trying to spoil everyone’s fun. She’ll find her in no time.”

 _It’s been more than a year,_ he wanted to say. _I need to get over this. I need to move on. But everything reminds me of her, and everything revolves around her, and I can’t get it out of my system when the entire galaxy wants to shove it back in._

“No time eh?” he said instead, staring into his glass. “I’ll drink to that too.”

 

 


	11. Worth It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Aric and Brill's interlude on Belsavis -- just a little drabbly-thing to get me through to Aric day.

Brilleln didn’t hesitate, despite the look in Aric’s eyes, but answered the comm to see Elara’s earnest face.

“Major we need a location.”

“Can you get a fix?”

“Keep talking and Yuun will give it a try. Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention?”

“We’re doing fine, Lieutenant. Should be all patched up with a few hours in medbay. Is the rest of the squad okay?”

“Vik took a hit to the leg, he is complaining about it, extensively, but he’ll live. The rest of us are fully operational.”

Brill glanced up at Aric, who was still only in his under armour, arms and neck exposed so she could see the lightly striped fur. “That’s good to hear,” she said, trying to make words with a mouth suddenly dry. He was taping a bandage over a wound on his arm she didn’t even know he had and she wanted suddenly more than anything to take over that duty for him, touch him, feel her fingers in that fur the way she had so comprehensively only a few moments ago.

“How’s that fix going?” She said to Dorne instead, hoping that her voice was steady. “You want me to count down…”

“Please do, sir,” Dorne said, and Brill started a slow count down from one hundred, getting to fifty eight before Dorne’s curt “we’ve got you, sir” meant she could stop.

“ETA?” She said.

“You’re about three klicks from our current position, Major. We’ll be there in under an hour.”

“We’re buried under a couple of metres of rubble, Lieutenant.”

“Understood. Yuun and Vik have excavating equipment, we’ll be in touch when we’re closer. Dorne out.”

She put the comm down, glancing back up again to see Aric pulling his over armour back on. “Captain?”

He looked over his shoulder at her, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Guess we’re getting out of this alive after all.”

She licked her lips. “That a problem?” She asked, trying to force her voice normal.

He looked at her more sharply this time. “No!” He stopped. “Uh. No. Not a problem at all. Should it be a problem?... Sir?”

She winced. “You really… don’t need to call me sir right now,” she said.

He dropped the gauntlet he was holding and knelt next to her. “Brilleln,” he said.

She smiled. Hesitated, then reached out, touching his face. He leaned into it, let her run her fingers through the fur, down to his neck. “It sounds good. When you say my name like that.”

“Like what?” He said, smiling a little bit, and she shook her head, huffing out a laugh.

“This isn’t regulation,” she said. “We’re not supposed to be doing this at all. Kinda… didn’t think about that. Before we actually did it.”

His lip twitched, and he reached for her hand. “Glad you didn’t,” he said. “Can’t say the same for me, though. Thought about it a whole damned lot.”

She laughed. “Well if we’re going to be absolutely honest I’d have to say the same. You were always such an asshole. Don’t know when that changed, exactly.”

He shrugged. “It didn’t,” he said. “Still an asshole. Just... handsome too.”

She gripped his hand hard enough for the claws to extend again, pricking at her wrist, and she felt her breath come short, remembering the feel of them against her skin. “Don’t want this to be a one time thing, Jorgan,” she said, without looking up. “Can we work that?”

He let out a breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I’ll work with that, Major. As hard as you want me to.”

She let out a laugh, looking up into his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that,” she said.

“Between us for now though?” He asked.

She nodded. “They’ll work it out, but we don’t want Garza breathing down our necks about it if we can help it.”

“Understood.”

He let go of her hand and got up, moving about the cavern, collecting gear, pulling on more of his armour. She supposed she should do the same, but she was content for the moment just to watch him, the familiar way he moved, the shape and smell and presence of him in her space enough for her heart to be calm and her mind to be clear.

 _This is worth it,_ she thought.


	12. What's hers.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yannada Sila is a Miralukan Bounty Hunter. She gets sick of being asked why sometimes.  
> This is a starter fic for what I'm hoping will be a bigger Bounty Hunter story (also an intro for her since she's going to start showing up in Bite the Hand after Chapter 13 comes out for reasons that will become obvious once you read it).

Her mother’s fingers were strong against her shoulders, her force signature clouded with fear and anxiety. Yannada knew that much, even if the force was too stubborn to be able to obey her commands, even if she could only read the feelings of those closest to her, her mother’s love, unconditional in its intensity, was unmistakable.

“Stretch out with your feelings, Yannada,” she said into her ear. Yannada, trying her best, wanting not to disappoint, did as she asked. She could sense the objects in front of her, the slight bumps in the force, the dead space that meant metal and furniture that had never been alive, but she could not move them, no matter how hard she tried.

“I can’t,” she said, turning her face back into her mother’s chest, wanting that comfort at least. “I just can’t.”

Her mother’s warm hands surrounded her and pulled her close, Yannada felt her breath on her cheek and the hitch of repressed sadness in her voice.

“It’s all right, darling,” she said, cupping her jaw, placing a delicate kiss on her cheek. “Maybe it will come to you, in time.”

 

It didn’t.

 

She learned to get around it.

 

_Mako:_

“What’s this?” Mako asked as they left the cantina -- Hutta’s fragrant atmosphere hit Yannada’s nostrils like an all out assault -- she’d forgotten exactly how disgusting the planet was and regretted removing her helmet to talk to Mako in the first place. It wasn’t as if she needed to. But people expected it, sometimes, and sometimes Yannada forgot that she didn’t care.

“Echo locator. It’s keyed into my mask. Clip it to your belt and it’ll stop me from shooting you by accident if we get into a firefight.”

“Wha… are you likely to shoot me by accident? I thought…”

“I’m blind kid, remember?”

“But I thought… Miralukans… Don’t you have force sight?”

Yannada pushed down the surge of irritation that always accompanied those words. “You don’t know shit about my people, kid, don’t go presuming. I can recognise force signatures sure, but I’ve only known you for ten minutes, on a battlefield you’ll just feel like any other poor sap with a blaster. So you wear that on your belt and if I point my gun at you I’ll get a little warning beep telling me not to kill you, you’ll be grateful for it, trust me.”

Mako clipped it to her belt, and Yannada nodded. She was only kind of lying -- Mako was distinctive enough that Yannada figured she’d be able to tell her apart from the others pretty fast, but it was better to be safe with this sort of thing.

She’d done stupid shit in the middle of a firefight too many times not to take precautions.

 

_Gault:_

“Are you ever going to take off the helmet? I’d love to know what your eyes are like.”

She snorted. “They didn’t tell you much about me, did they?”

“Hey I’ve just been running away from you and trying not to get killed, I didn’t take a whole lot of time to learn your exact measurements.” She heard him give a slight huff of breath and his voice lowered “Although I could give you some estimates on those, just from walking behind you....”

She ran a hand down the curve in her armour that accommodated her (wide) hips, and smirked at him. “Oh yeah?”

“My professional opinion,” he said, stepping closer, “is that you’d fit very well up against a wall. Pretty sure I could lift you high enough to give you a good time. Ever hear about the length of a devaronian tongue?”

She couldn’t keep a straight face, and laughed, even while heat pooled in her belly. 

“Shut up,” she said. Hesitated. Then shrugged. He owed her, his life and whatever passed for his liberty if he was determined to bunk on her ship and help her win the grand hunt. “If you’re gonna work with me you should probably know.” She undid the seals on her helmet and pulled it off her head, the blasted heat of Tatooine hitting her with all its force.

“Oookay,” Gault said. “You’re wearing a helmet under the helmet. Novel idea, is it some new fashion or…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” She didn’t usually remove her eyepiece, but something about the devoronian had her intrigued, and he wasn’t being deliberately obtuse, he obviously just wasn’t used to thinking about things other than himself. She unclipped the curved metal plate, pulling it away from her face, feeling the unfamiliar touch of air on skin that had, since she had been a child, spent most of its time covered. 

“Huh,” he said. “They never mentioned that in the reports.”

There was no disgust in his voice, and none of the attraction she could feel pouring off him seemed to dissipate. Either the guy was just generally really horny (ha ha, Yannada, you’re fucking hilarious) or he really did find her attractive. 

Interesting.

“Don’t go trying to charm me with your looks,” she said. “It won’t work.”

“People tend to like me for my personality,” he said. “They tend to hate me for it too. I’ve always said it’s better to have strong opinions than no opinions though, so I’m not going to complain.”

She shook her head, clipping her mask back into place. Somehow she didn’t think he was going to need the echo locator she was toying with in one hand for him, and she slipped it back into her belt.

“I thought your people were all Jedi,” he said, as they walked back to her speeder. It was going to be interesting, riding back to the ship -- the speeder was really only supposed to take one.

“Some of us can’t stand sanctimonious shit,” she said, swinging one leg over and patting the small space behind her. He got on, shifting forward so he was pressed against her back, hot breath on her neck. She smiled as his hands settled in the dip of her waist.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine,” he said, and she kicked the speeder into life.

 

_ Torian: _

Ugh, she knew that feeling. If she hadn’t just spent three hours in her cabin with Gault and his extremely talented tongue, maybe she would have been tempted. He had a nice voice, and he was competent, but he was a kid, probably ten years younger than she was, and while she could appreciate that age didn’t really matter that much once you got past that awkward gangly stage and knew how to give consent, she had a few objections to bunking with a guy who looked the same age as Mako.

“Ni vercopaanir at hibirar teh gar,” Cadera said. Yannada sighed.

“I’m not Mandolorian, kid, and I have a hard time with any languages other than basic. That’s what translators are for.”

“You won the grand hunt,” he said.

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean I have to be one of you. I don’t have to be one of anyone. I just want to be one of me. If you want to run with me, you gotta get that straight now.”

He wasn’t happy with that. “Fine,” he said. “But if you’re going to walk around in that armor and be a mouthpiece for our people you should at least learn a few words of our language. We’ve had enough people steal from us.”

“I’m not looking to steal from you.”

“People don’t usually set out to step on our culture,” he said. “But they end up doing it any way.”

She tilted her head, remembering the precise timbre of her mother’s voice -- the way her force signature had seemed to wilt, when Yannada had told her she was leaving.

So many years ago now. Sometimes she couldn’t even remember if it was worth it.

“At least you have one of your own,” she said.

 

_ Blizz: _

“Boss help Blizz. Blizz help boss. Easy.”

She couldn’t help smiling. The jawa was the easiest person she’d ever had a conversation with, and she felt her heart swell with an unfamiliar emotion.

Protective. She wanted to protect this guy. Weird. But she could work with it. “I guess it is, isn’t it.”

“Imps. Pubs. No see easy way. Make credits, fix ships and machines, they break and ask Blizz to fix again. Dumb.”

“You won’t get any arguments from me there, little fella.”

“Blizz can fix Boss ship’s engines, make them run better. Give you better guns. Echo locator in Boss’s helmet uses old tech, Blizz know dealer can get you…”

“You know what, Blizz?” Yannada said, “I think you and me, we’re gonna make a great team.”

“Blizz _like_ new boss!”

“I like you too.”

 

_Hylo:_

“You cheat me and you run around the galaxy with a different name for years and you think I actually meant it when I said I’d take you back? You really are a dumb, lovestruck….  _ idiot.” _

“You’re still beautiful, baby.”

“Ugh. Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you now?”

Yannada wasn’t keen on Gault getting killed, not today, so she stepped between them, holding up her hands.

“Can we negotiate this?”

Visz glanced at her, then gave her a once over. “How about I kill this slimeball first, then you and me can negotiate  _ all  _ you want.”

Gault spluttered and Yannada could sense the heat rising in him. Embarrassment -- that was to be expected. Arousal too.

Typical. 

Visz had a low, deep, rich voice and Yannada could see a possibly entertaining solution to this problem.

“Gault’s useful,” she said. “And it’d be a crime to waste that tongue of his. Maybe we could make this a three way negotiation?”

Gault’s spluttering turned into a cough. “Babe, you really don’t want…”

Hylo and Yannada didn’t even bother looking at him. “Shut up,” they said together, and then Hylo, still with the blaster trained on Gault, took a step closer. 

“He’ll cheat you and leave you,” she said.

“Maybe,” Yannada replied. “But so does everyone, in the end.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” A small, cool hand cupped Yannada’s cheek, and Yannada smiled, putting her own hand over it, moving it to cover her mouth. She pressed her lips to the palm, stepping forward to slide her other hand around Hylo’s waist.

Gault groaned. “You’re going to kill me,” he said. “The two of you, you’re going to kill me and I’m probably going to like it.”

“That’s the idea,” Yannada said.

“If you behave we’ll hold off on the killing,” Hylo said, just before she pulled Yannada’s head down to kiss her.

 

She’d been fifteen when she left, full of attitude and anger and the teachers had feared she would fall to the dark.

Yannada had spat back at them that falling to the dark side wouldn’t do anyone any harm. She had barely enough force sensitivity to get through a room without falling over, If she went to the sith they would laugh at her and then eat her alive.

No. She needed something else. Some other way to live. Her mother had understood, in the end. No one else had even tried.

“I heard about the Alliance,” her mother’s voice was crackly over the holo frequency, but it still sounded the same, and Yannada smiled. “Don’t get yourself killed running cargo for people who don’t care about you.”   


“I won’t,” she said. “And I’ll drop by and visit soon.”

“Leave that devaronian on the ship this time. Such a mouth on him!”

She laughed.  _ Oh mother, you have no idea.  _ “He was all paranoid someone recognised him last time, so yeah, he’ll stay on the ship. It can just be you and me.”

“That’ll be nice.”

She was in the cockpit of the Profit, Hylo and Gault were still sleeping in their quarters, the ship was quiet and running smoothly thanks to Blizz’s upgrades, Mako and Torian were probably off flirting badly with each other in the galley.

Nearly thirty years, to reach this point. Right now, right here, that was where she wanted to be. Her, her ship, her crew, and the one woman who’d always believed in her.

Life was good.


	13. Self Regulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We can't let the boys have all the fun. Have a snippet of Brilleln, dealing with some of the frustrations that ah... arose due to the nipcatarin incident. NSFW peoples!

Brill left him sleeping, or at least pretending to, on the cot in medbay. She debated restraining him again, but decided against it, simply set an alert on the medbay door that would tell her if he woke and started wandering around the ship before the rest of his sedatives wore off. Truth be told she was almost certain the worst of the nipcatarin had passed -- he was crashing, now, something she’d seen often enough in spice addicts on Nar Shadaa for it not to be any mystery to her. 

He was at the point where most people wanted to be touched and held. Told it was all right. Comforted.

She could have stayed with him. Let her fingers run through his fur as he fell asleep, traced the lines of his muscles under his arm, listened to the sound of his breathing. He would have appreciated it, on a basic level. It was no fun, coming down on your own.

She wished she didn’t know that from experience.

She shook her head and strode towards her cabin, determined not to linger on thoughts of how his claws had felt pressed against the skin of her waist, the feel of his breath on her ear, the slight growl in his voice as he’d talked…

Goddess.

She keyed the door shut and leaned against its back for a moment, both hands flat against the cool metal, pushing out and trying to stretch the frustration out of her muscles.

It wasn’t going to work.

She sighed and shrugged, then stripped off her top and pants, climbing back into her bed and dimming the lights. She smoothed her hands over her breasts and down to her hips, then settled in a comfortable, familiar position, middle finger ghosting over her cunt, feeling the wetness there.

Yeah, there was no way she was sleeping yet.

She bit her lip, stroking upwards slowly, thinking of nothing in particular just yet, just enjoying the sensation of touch. Wondered, then, if Jorgan could do this for her. His claws would be a problem, she thought, he’d have to be behind her, pressed against her back with his fingers sliding down her stomach and between her legs from above.

Or perhaps he could put his hand over hers, yes, like that, while she did the bulk of the work, his breath hot on her ear cones, mouth ghosting over her lekku as she moved her hand. He’d feel when she picked up the pace, understand why she rubbed up against him… goddess, yes she’d be able to feel  _ him  _ behind her, against her skin, and she could lean forward enough for him to slide inside and…

The world went white behind her eyes.

_ Fuck. _

She didn’t think she’d come that quickly in years.

She wasn’t entirely sure she’d been quiet, there, at the end. Hoped Elara and Vik were safely asleep now that Jorgan was under control. She swallowed, catching her breath, then lay on her side, closing her eyes. She was tired and boneless and satisfied, at least for now, although how she was going to keep a straight face when she saw him again in the morning…

She’d deal with that tomorrow.


	14. The Nature of Gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't really just call this chapter ghost sex.... although that's basically what it is.

Satele Shan thought was no stranger to solitary meditation. Yet it had been years since she’d had the opportunity to do so without the interruptions of padawans or knights or members of the Jedi council, to the point where she had curtailed her customary studies and routines. Half an hour, grabbed here and there, whenever she could beg the time. She was used to taking peace where she could find it, in short gasps rather than the long calm she had been used to during her early days of training.

Here, living rough in the forest, she had more peace than she knew what to do with.

For the first few days it had been bliss. Naturally, the fate of the galaxy, the efforts of her son and the struggles of those peoples under the thumb of Arcann and his father’s shadow had taken their toll. But she had spent hours simply attuned to the life around her, felt the force flowing through her in ways she had forgotten were possible.

Now she had other distractions.

“Your son is skilled in logistics,” Marr said. She had come to expect him, at this time of the day, when the light was failing and she had started a fire for her evening meal.

“The SIS gave him training that was perhaps lacking under Master Zho,” Satele agreed. She was uncertain, as yet, whether she welcomed or resented the presence of the Sith’s ghost. Loneliness had never been one of her particular fears, and she would hardly have sought out Marr’s company when he had been alive.

Yet she could appreciate his intelligence, and his desire to see their enterprise succeed. Vitiate threatened them all, after all. Even those who had supposedly stepped beyond the bounds of death.

“The Wrath, on the other hand, seems to desire nothing more than for responsibilities to be taken from her shoulders.”

“Yet this can be one of her strongest motivations,” Satele said, smiling a little. She had no cause to love her son’s choice of partner, but she would not begrudge them the happiness they had found.

“The act of finding someone else to take on your burdens is often more time consuming than assuming those burdens yourself.”

“Something that I suspect the Lord Wrath will come to understand, in time,” Satele said. She poked at the fire and looked up, trying to focus on the shifting white image that was all that remained of Marr now that he had passed on to the force.

“You are curious,” he said. “Trust me when I say I am no longer capable of embarrassment. Ask your questions.”

“Why are you here?” She asked, the words falling out of her mouth before she could fully shape their meaning in her heart. That was not the question she had intended to ask, truly.

It was the question she most wished to have answered.

“You do not know?”

“I know you work towards Vitiate’s downfall,” she said. “I do not see how that… binds you to me.”

Marr’s presence wavered for a second, then she felt him, far closer to her. “We are matched,” he said softly. “You knew it on Rishi, when we first met. On Yavin 4, when we fought Revan. You and I, we are different parts of a whole. I always believed that the force was something to be used, only now do I understand that it requires balance.”

“I suspect that balance feels differently to you than it does to me,” she said, smiling slightly.

“You do not have the benefit of death to give you perspective,” he said, and his voice was so close to her ear that she shivered.

She had a sudden, vivid recollection of Jace, leaning close to her on Alderaan, wracked with pain and the guilt of his lost men, yet reaching out with feelings that she could not help but reciprocate. Then, it had been an overwhelming force, one that she could not deny no matter how hard she might have tried.

She was older now, and passion was familiar, and far easier to control.

A soft chuckle from Marr let her know he could sense the direction of her thoughts.

“Death has not lessened your determination, I see,” she said.

“I am sith. I exist through passion, as does Vitiate.” There was a pause, then a shimmer in the force that she felt all the way to her toes. “Perhaps I could teach you how to harness yours.”  
She shook her head, smiling, even as warmth spread through her middle. “I do not need to harness passion,” she said. “My strength comes from the living force, as did yours, no matter how your code may lead you to think otherwise.”

“But you do not deny passion,” he said. “You believe that you have moved beyond it. I believe you delude yourself.”

“Marr I do believe you are flirting with me.”

He chuckled again, and his presence dissipated. She sighed in frustration, and returned to the business of cooking her meal.

As darkness enveloped her camp site and she retired to her tent, she found sleep eluding her. Marr’s words about passion echoed through her thoughts, and she again found herself thinking of Jace and their time together before Theron’s conception. She had been wary of the Commander of Havoc Squad for more than one reason, and their liaison had been brief, yet she still thought fondly of him on occasion.

She had had lovers after Jace, of course, but none had approached that level of passion. She had eschewed such strong attachments, keeping to the code as much as possible, and she believed she was stronger for it.

So why could she not sleep?

Why could she still hear the gentle chiding tone of Darth Marr’s chuckle?

She took a deep breath, trying to calm the turmoil in her mind. Peace eluded her, however, and eventually she had to acknowledge that she was in need of release. There was no shame or rule against dealing with passion as it came to her, and she was familiar enough with her own body to know that she could deal with it efficiently enough.

She started, as she normally did, picturing Jace -- his large hands on her waist, her breasts, the way he had touched her reverently, as though she was something precious and dear to him. But her mind wandered, and as her fingers found rhythm she remembered the exact timbre of Marr’s voice -- his true voice -- the voice that he had used when he was still living.

A sharp spike of warmth and pleasure shot through her and she gasped out loud, eyes widening. She bit her lip, her hand slowing. Thinking about Jace was all well and good, but thinking about Marr, considering their force bond… could possibly lead to…

“Grand Master Shan,” his presence was palpable in the tent, and Satele, flushing to the roots of her hair, stilled her hand and sat up.

“Darth Marr. Your presence right now is unnecessary. And intrusive.”

“I must beg to differ,” he said. His faint outline coalesced, giving light to the otherwise dark tent. He appeared to sit, crosslegged, in front of her, hands on his knees. “The force flows through you with more strength than I have ever felt,” he continued. “Could it be that our discussion of passion earlier has led you to a discovery?”

She laughed, a little helplessly. “As I said before, Marr,” she said. “I am no stranger to passion.”

“Just to sharing that passion with others,” he said.

She opened her mouth to reply, and stopped, tilting her head to one side. Her heart rate had increased, the force around them was charged and expectant, her unfinished task and his suggestive words hanging in the air, almost tangible.

“Why do you appear to me masked?” She asked then. “You speak of passion and longing, yet you cover and close yourself from me. Not conducive to sharing.”

He was still and silent for a moment. Then his aspect shimmered and changed. Gone were the spikes and peaks of his formal armor, instead a man, and unclothed.

He was handsome -- insofar as Satele was able to judge these things. Powerfully built. His skin was smooth and hairless -- far darker than her own, and dotted here and there with scars. She would have put his age at somewhere close to hers, although it was difficult to tell in this incorporeal form. This must have been what he looked like when he’d died, when Vitiate had killed him and subsequently been struck down by the Wrath.

The beginning of their quest.

“Have I shared enough with you, Master Shan?” He asked.

She blinked, then smiled, tinged with sadness. “I regret that I never saw your face, before you died,” she said.

He returned her smile, and there was kindness in that expression that she did not expect. “I think you would have perceived me somewhat differently,” he said. “Certainly you would think me more of a threat.”

“You are no threat to me,” she paused, contemplating. “I do not believe you were then, either. Our purpose was common, as it is now.”

“Purpose,” he said. “Is that all that we have in common?”

Her breath quickened. This was a kind of madness, surely. A sith ghost, naked in her tent, her own, living body throbbing with unspent desire.

“It is all that we can have, is it not, Darth Marr?”

His smile deepened, and he leaned forward. “Perhaps not,” he said. His voice felt like a living thing, coiling around her and caressing her with more surety than her own fingers and she shut her eyes, trying to repress the shiver that spread across her skin. “I interrupted you,” he said softly. “That was… most inconsiderate.”

“You…”

“I should like the opportunity to make it up to you, Grand Master Shan.”

“How…?” She choked off with a gasp, the force around her suddenly alight with passion that was _not_ her own. “Marr…” she breathed.

“Will you let me do this? Is it what you want?”

She hesitated only a fraction of a second. “Yes,” she said. “Yes it is what I want.”

He settled over her then, much like a tangible lover, but where his body pressed against hers she felt nothing but the living force, concentrated power and purpose and need. Marr was handsome enough, she supposed, but she found if she closed her eyes the sensations became far more intense. Marr infused her senses, the force swirling in a vortex around them both, living and pulsing with their combined feelings. Her hands moved almost of her own accord, searching her skin, touching her breasts, sliding down between her legs. Marr’s power was everywhere around her, sparking heat across her skin. “Here,” he whispered, and she felt a warmth spreading upwards, inside her, heat coiling tightly like a spring deep in her core.

“Ah…” she arched her back off her bedroll, as it crescendoed to a piercing sweetness, aching, incomplete.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered and she was happy to oblige, bringing her fingers to bear.

She was so close that she expected to come almost immediately, but the power around her managed to keep her tipped on the edge, peaking with an intensity that must shatter or she would break.

“Marr!” She cried out as her fingers worked.

“Together,” he said, and his voice was enough to tip her over, shuddering into stillness.

She lay, gasping and boneless. Marr’s presence was still near and she reached out with the force, trying to feel, trying to sense whether he had experienced anything like the passion she had.

“It is not the same,” he said gently. “But I do assure you, Satele, it was most enjoyable. You have my thanks.”

It seemed absurd, to offer politeness, after sharing something so intense. Yet she could feel the rightness of it. “Thank you,” she said.

“Sleep well,” he murmured, and then he was gone.


	15. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brill and Aric have a proper reunion.

When she walked onto the Thunderclap she nearly cried again, clenching a fist and breathing deep to stop herself from giving in to the feeling. There were changes, of course. Squad members moving around the ship had different cadences to their walks. Crew quarters was a little more crowded, naturally, and the little personal effects of the squad scattered here and there were different. Some sort of musical instrument in with the weapons -- a few photos of Xaban and Torg’s families. The conference was room empty of Forex’s familiar hums and clicks.

It even smelled different. Weequay and Gand different to Kel Dor and Twi’lek. 

But their quarters hadn’t changed a bit.

He still had their wedding photo on what had been her desk -- the same purple bedspread he’d ostensibly hated when she’d first got it. 

He bustled around her unclipping his ammunition belt. She stood, awkwardly. She had nowhere near as much gear as she used to -- comm units and charge packs and kolto -- none of those were in good supply on Belsavis, and so his methodical stowing of his things was something she could only watch with an aching heart because it was so familiar, only wrong, because she was not doing the same with him.

“Odessan’s a couple of jumps away,” he was saying. “The Gravestone’s slower than we are so we’re going to coast in rather than hotfoot it, try to time the jumps as close as possible.” He stopped, looked up at her. She saw his throat work in a swallow. “What is it?” She asked.

“Ancestors,” he breathed. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

She stepped forward and he lifted a hand, tucking under the curve of her tchin in a gesture so familiar she felt tension bleed away like water. His fingers followed her tchin to the end and she felt it curl around his wrist.

That was enough for her to push him back against the wall, his free hand hooking around her waist as he pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed along her jaw and down to her neck, letting out a low, needy sound in the back of his throat.

“Aric,” she spread her hands along his shoulders, finding buckles in unfamiliar places, suddenly desperate to feel him against her, inside her. “I love you.”

He raked his claws up her back, making her shiver and moan, and she found the clasp on his breastplate, pulling it off and throwing it to the side, wishing she had claws of her own so she could shred the undershirt into pieces. 

He struggled with the clasps on his greaves and she knelt in front of him, pulling at them herself, familiar enough with it to manage that at least. They didn’t need to be all the way off for what she had in mind in any case, and she pulled them to the side, yanking down his underarmor. 

He touched her shoulder and she looked up into eyes that were almost totally black. “Brill,” he said, “if you do that…”

She shook her head, smiling, then leaned forward and took him in her mouth. There was a thump as the back of his head hit the wall behind him, the prick of claws in the skin of her scalp, and he snarled as she bobbed down, then slid off, licking a stripe up his cock and lingering on the tip. “Brill,  _ tajr, _ kriffing… I’m not going to  _ last _ …” he trailed off into a yelp as she sucked down as far as she could, relishing the noises he made, the swearing that continued in several languages other than basic, then pulled off and slid back up his body, raking her fingers through his fur, feeling new scars and old. When she was upright he gripped her arms and all but threw her back onto the bed, kicking off the remains of his boots as he did so, then helping her shimmy out of her own trousers.

Then he was on top of her, sliding in, scraping his teeth down the side of her neck, claws making perfect pinpricks of pain on her upper arms. She hooked one leg around his waist as he thrust into her, and he pulled back, resting himself on an elbow as he moved, looking into her eyes as his pace increased. She reached up and touched his lips, and he opened his mouth, tongue curling around her fingers, then biting lightly down on them.

She needed more, more of him, more of this, and lifted her other leg and he shifted, pulling both of her ankles up and onto his shoulders, leaning forward so he could go deeper, turning his head to sink his teeth into her shin. She arched her back, crying out,  _ this  _ was what she needed. “Faster,” she gasped out and he obliged.

“Fuck,” he gasped out. “I missed you.”

She clenched around him and he growled, pushing forward so her hips were completely off the bed, and thrusting as deep as he could. He nipped at her arm, scraping along the skin, lapping at it with a rough tongue and she came, shouting his name, tilting her head back, not caring that the whole ship might hear. That was enough to send him over, and she felt him thrust hard, spilling into her and collapsing forwards. She let her legs drop, bringing her arms around his middle and holding, as tight as she could, breathing him in. 

She knew she was bleeding, from at least three different places, didn’t care, relished in the boneless, heavy weight of him on her, over her, inside her. His breath slowed and she felt his lips on her lekku, a pleased rumbling through his chest that turned into the full gorgeous deep thrum of his purr. He was home. They were home.

The covers were going to need a wash.

Purple was a good colour though, for more than one reason. At least the bloodstains wouldn’t be visible. 

He reached over for tissues and pulled out of her, flopping onto his back and she snuggled up against him.

“Missed you too,” she said, and he chuckled.


	16. Satisfactory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little drabble set in a maybe AU where Quinn comes back and Vopenir finds out about the incident on Port Nowhere.

“Agent Shan.”

“Malavai Quinn.”

The force around the two men was roiling. She crossed her arms over her chest, glancing between them. Theron would not look at Malavai, and Malavai’s eyes slid away from hers when she tried to catch them. 

Well. At least one of them was trained to do as she told him..

“Malavai,” she snapped. “Explain.”

“Explain what?” Theron said.

She didn’t imagine the way Malavai’s back straightened into a far more formal posture. This was familiar to him. Easy. “Agent Shan and I had sexual relations three years ago on Port Nowhere my lord,” he said. 

She heard Theron choke behind her and resisted the urge to look at him. “Oh,  _ really?”  _ she said.

“It was a momentary aberration in my search for you, my lord.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Fascinating,” she said. She didn’t imagine the slight flush under Quinn’s cheekbones, and sneaked a peak at Theron, who was doing his best to melt into the computer bank behind him.

“It was his idea,” Theron mumbled.

“I do believe you issued the invitation, Agent Shan.”

“Well… not in so many  _ words _ … but...”

“Very few words were spoken, but the general intent of your actions was easy to decipher, Agent Shan.”

“You’re the one who…”

“I trust you enjoyed yourself,” Vopenir interrupted.

“It was satisfactory,” Malavai said. 

_ “Satisfactory?” _ Theron said.

“I’m glad you found a connection while I was away,” Vopenir said. “You always were so very tense if you went too long without, Malavai.”

“I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing, my lord.”

Theron’s mouth was open and he was looking between the two of them as they spoke. “For goodness sake, Theron, you look like you’ve eaten something that disagrees with you. What’s the matter?”

“You’re not… angry?”

“Stars no, why would I be angry? A little envious, perhaps, that I was not present. Perhaps we can arrange a repeat…”   


Both men shook their heads and Theron raised his hands. “Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

She chuckled. “Oh well. A girl can dream. Now where are those reports..?”


	17. Being Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aric and Brill have sex in the kitchen. Got bit by the smut bug again, one day it will stop bothering me. But NOT TODAY.

It was a week before they could get time together again.

Brill felt like she was in a waking dream. They spent two days in hyperspace, en route back to Coruscant, and she spent a lot of that time pacing in her cabin. Aric was in crew quarters, or in the armory, and every time they crossed paths she felt like the whole ship was on fire. She couldn’t stop flashing back to his teeth in her shoulder, his claws on her legs. She was in a perpetual state of arousal.

It was three am, and the ship was due to drop in home system in three hours, and she was in the kitchen, staring at a ration pack, knowing she wasn’t hungry but desperate to do something to fill the ache in her chest. She’d crept in as quietly as she could manage (and for a big girl she could move pretty damned quietly) knowing that 4X had altered his programming to make sure his Major got enough sleep. She’d not had the heart to tell him not to bother -- she really could sleep anywhere, but the last few days sleep had been a looong time coming, when she could barely lie down without remembering the exact timbre of Aric’s growls as he thrust inside her.

She shut her eyes and banged her head gently against the wave oven.

“Sir?”

Fuck. Shit. Kriffing fuck. 

She opened her eyes to see him standing across the counter. His fur was normally so neat, she’d never thought that it actually needed grooming, but right now there were tufts sticking up around his ears and he… 

Goddess he…

He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Her mouth went completely dry. She shifted, her thighs rubbing together, sparking sensations that made her bite her lip to stop herself from making a sound. 

She’d never considered herself particularly enthusiastic about sex in the past. Sure she’d fucked a lot of men (and a few women) back on Nar Shadaa but it had always been something she’d done for companionship and pleasure, not this all consuming need she felt in the pit of her stomach whenever he was in the room.

His eyes were tracking her mouth, she realised after a moment, and the lighting in the kitchen was good enough that she could  _ see  _ the gold in them disappear as it was swallowed up by black. She let her tongue dart out to wet her lips and he made a sound in the back of his throat that made her lekku curl.

“What..” she cleared her throat. “Why are you awake?”   


He looked to the side, swallowing. “Having trouble sleeping, lately,” he said, then moved, slowly, as though he was afraid of startling her, into the kitchen. “You?”

“Same,” she said. He was so close now, as he opened the fridge and reached inside for one of his own specifically tailored ration packs -- meat and that was about it, she knew from reading the ingredients. 

Goddess she could smell him. She realised she’d leaned forward, so that her nose was nearly at his ear, and tried to pull back, but he turned at the same time and his chest brushed against her lekku and she couldn’t have stopped the moan that fell from her lips if she’d tried and she didn’t particularly try.

Suddenly she was up against the counter, and his hands were on its surface right by her hips, and she could feel the heat pouring off him in waves and  _ kriff she was so fucking horny. _

“Aric,” she said. Fuck but she could feel the exact shape of his cock under the thin material of his shorts and he was as hard as durasteel against her. She shifted a little, definitely not deliberately rubbing against him, no, and he bared his teeth at her, the ration pack in his hand dropping to the deck with a dull thud.

“Major,” he ground out, voice hoarse, right by her ear cone. “You need to order me out of the kitchen right now because otherwise I am going to fuck you on this counter.”

She nearly came right there, the sound of his voice against her skin bringing her to the brink. 

They could move to her quarters. There was a bed there. There was… there were things to help… stuff… she should just pull him by the scruff of his neck and throw him on her bed and ride him until he couldn’t see straight but...

She grabbed the back of his head, pulled it down so her lips were brushing his ear. “How quiet can  _ you _ be?” she mouthed the words, only the slightest puff of breath giving them sound.

He didn’t wait, and to his credit, didn’t make a sound, just grabbed the waistband of her sleeping trousers and urged her hips up so he could slide them down. His own shorts were just as easy to get rid of and with a little adjustment, a considerate settling of her down on the benchtop, he was able to slide in. She would be embarrassed at how easy it was, how wet she was, but the feel of him inside her was all consuming, and now she had to make good on her challenge and not make a sound while his cock was filling her, and his teeth were grazing the side of her neck, and his hands were at her waist as he thrust, hard and fast and oh  _ stars oh goddess oh fuck… _

She wrapped her legs around his waist and jammed her wrist in her mouth, biting down to stop from crying out, watching him as he moved above her.

He was clenching his teeth, breathing hard through his nostrils, and she used her free hand to creep down between them, fingering her clit, knowing that he was close. The slightest of groans escaped his throat as he realised what she was doing and he thrust even harder, losing all rhythm as she coasted to the edge and over, biting so hard on her wrist she was amazed she didn’t draw blood.

A few more, desperate, hard, thrusts and he joined her, collapsing over her on the counter, panting.

As she came down, boneless and satisfied, everything suddenly sounded five times louder. Her heart, hammering in her chest, Aric’s breathing, the way her skin slid and stuck to the counter by turns -- everything made enough noise to  _ echo  _ through the small space. Brill swallowed, running fingers through the fur on Aric’s chest, trying desperately not to remember 4X, one room away, and Elara in Medbay, and Vik and Yuun and every single last one of her responsibilities. 

Much as she would have liked to lie here until the ship dropped out of hyperspace it was a really fucking bad idea.

Aric seemed to have similar thoughts and with a last slide of his hand over her lekku, slid off her, yanking up his shorts and grabbing her hand to help her up after him.

“That… was fucking incredible,” he said. She couldn’t agree more to that. “But…” he shook his head, running his hand over it, “it was stupid. I’m  _ sorry, _ sir.”

“Not your fault,” she said. “I’m technically supposed to be the responsible one here.”

He reached up and under her tchin, gently stroking the skin there, letting his hand slide down its length. “You’re so damned beautiful,” he said. “I can’t concentrate. On anything. It’s…”

She shivered as his fingers reached the tip of her tchin, eyes fluttering shut, wanting to lean in, embrace him. Sleep with him, she supposed. Right now she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do than lie down with him, have the time and the right to hold him through the night. “We’ve been stuck in hyperspace too long,” she said instead. “Once we’re back in the field it should be better.”

He swallowed. Glanced down at the counter. Swore and grabbed a cloth to wipe it down, turning his back on her. 

“I…” she stared, but the telltale whirr, click, of 4X’s metal feet on the deck made her stop. Aric looked up at her, jerking his head, telling her to get back to her quarters. She fled, making it back to before 4X came into sight, heard the droid’s hearty greeting to Aric and his laconic reply as the door slid shut and she leaned against it, still throbbing between her legs, skin still tingling at every point where he had touched her.

Kriff.


	18. Covering Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the last chapter kind of needed a coda. Aric post-kitchen-counter-incident.

The counter was at least decent, now, only a slight smear where before there had been a perfect, round imprint of Brill’s ass, outlined in sweat and... other fluids on the shining durasteel surface. A shame, really, that it was gone, it had been in its own way, a work of art. 

Aric himself was a little less composed -- his cock was only halfway soft, not a process he could do anything to hurry, so he turned to face away from Forex as the robot entered, trying to remember why he’d come into the kitchen in the first place. Finding Brill here hadn’t been in his plans. Neither had fucking her on the counter, if he was going to be honest with himself, but that had kind of ended up being out of his control.

He didn’t know what would have happened if she’d followed through and ordered him out when he’d asked. Gone back to crew quarters and jerked off, most like.

Maker, he was glad that hadn’t happened. He’d been doing enough of that in the week and a half since they’d left Belsavis, when every time she opened her mouth he remembered what she’d sounded like shouting his name.  He felt like he’d been walking around the ship with a permanent boner. Easy enough to conceal in armor with an inch of durasteel and a protective cup, but they’d spent most of that week in transit and he’d been wearing his sweats and well… he’d been spending a lot of time facing walls and sitting at the dejarik table when he couldn’t conveniently make an excuse to shower.

“Captain, you’re awake well into your off shift,” Forex said. The droid was too big to fit between the benches, which was, in hindsight, a good thing, since Aric, on glancing towards him, saw that Brill had left her sleeping shorts and underwear on the floor of the kitchen, right next to the ration pack that was the reason he’d come to the kitchen in the first place.

_ Kriff. _

“Just a little hungry, Forex,” he said, hoping his cock had calmed down enough for him to face the droid. “Making up for skipping meals on Belsavis. You know how it is.”

“I am extremely fortunate not to know the pangs of hunger, Captain. Our brave troops in the field face so many more hardships than we droids.”

“I guess,” Aric said, bending down and scooping up the ration pack and the shorts, hoping Forex couldn’t angle his head down far enough to see what he was doing. He never did get the ins and outs of how the droid looked down.

It’d be just his luck if the damned thing had sensors on his underbelly. 

Aric wasn’t hungry any more -- hadn’t really been hungry in the first place, but he tore the ration pack open anyway, grabbing a bowl from a cupboard and surreptitiously stuffing Brill’s shorts and underwear in the back of his own shorts. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t turn his back on Forex while he was escaping the kitchen.

“Why are you prowling around the ship, Forex? Don’t you have simulations to run?”

“Indeed. But I am certain I heard the Major’s voice a few moments ago, she has been restless lately and I wanted to ensure she gets the requisite amount of sleep before we make planetfall back on Coruscant.”

“Well, she’s not here now.”

“She was present then?”

Aric swallowed. Lying to the droid would be an exercise in futility -- if he’d heard Brill he’d heard Brill. Exactly  _ what  _ he’d heard was cause for worry, but since he hadn’t come barging in here with a list of regulations they’d just broken he supposed even the droid didn’t manage to discern what exactly she’d been saying.

_ How quiet can YOU be? _

“I managed to convince her to go back to bed,” he said.  _ Without her damned pants,  _ he added silently. She would have realised as soon as she got to her quarters. She might be standing there half naked wondering what to do about it.

_ Aric Jorgan stop thinking about your CO half naked.  _

_ Stop thinking about her half naked with her legs wrapped around your waist as you… _

He clenched his fists, claws out and pricking into his palms. 

“Excellent,” Forex said. “We must all fortify ourselves with food and rest before we again face the Empire in glorious battle.”

“Yeah well I’m going to do that right now,” Aric said. “If you’ll excuse me?”

Forex moved out of the way and Aric took his bowl and slid past him, trying very hard not to let the droid see the extra pair of shorts making one side of his butt a hell of a lot bigger than it should be.

It was more awkward than his first academy dance, but he managed to get back to crew quarters without giving himself away. He debated just throwing the rations in the recycler, but wasting food set his teeth on edge, so he pulled Brill’s shorts out, stuffed them under his pillow and sat on his bunk, downing the ration in a few bites and hating the way it felt like lead in his stomach. He ducked back out into the kitchen to clean the bowl, and was thankful that Forex had taken himself back to wherever he’d gone. He was wiping it up and putting it away when he saw Brill’s head poke around her door.

“Shorts,” she hissed at him, eyes wide and panicked.

“Got them,” he mouthed back.

She saw her shoulders slump in relief, then she grinned at him, shaking her head. “Thank you,” she mouthed. He felt his lips quirk. 

“Any time,” he mouthed back.

_ Any time at all, Major. _


	19. Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The underwear saga continues.

She slept a lot better, once she’d sorted out the shorts problem, to the point that when the ship alarm went off to let her know they were dropping out of hyperspace she sat up, blearily, when normally she would have been up a long time before it. 

She had time for a quick shower -- not as long as she would have liked, before she dressed in her fatigues and made her way to the bridge. Garza was hardly going to order them into action on Coruscant, so armor was unnecessary. She’d heard Vik and Elara speculating that they were going to be stationed on Corellia next which would make sense. The Sith presence there was like a thorn in the republic’s side, undermining morale in troops and civilians alike. Havoc should be there, it was where they could do the most good.

Once she was on the bridge she adjusted her jacket and making sure her cuffs and collar were regulation. Elara, Vik and Yuun were already there, with Forex making a solid wall of metal just outside the cockpit. 

“Where’s Jorgan?” she asked.

Vik rolled his eyes. “Damned sleepyhead is catnapping,” he said. “Six nights in a row of waking us up at all hours and today not even the proximity alarm could wake him up.”

She felt a touch of heat on her cheekbones, thinking he was probably a little more relaxed after their morning exertions in the kitchen, then keyed the comm. 

“Jorgan we’re about to make planetfall I need you up and dressed in five.”

There was no response for a second, then Aric’s bleary voice over comms. “Understood, sir.”

When he arrived --  _ less _ than five minutes later she was pleased to note, Elara was doing final landing checks. He slid into the pilot’s chair with a muffled “sorry” and started flipping switches. 

“Aric and I need to report to Garza,” she said. “Vik I need you and Forex to organise refuelling and restocking, we’ve gone through a lot of supplies, more than usual considering the shitstorm on Belsavis. Elara and Yuun once the water tanks are filled I need you on laundry detail, the ship stinks.”

“Yes sir!”

“Once you’re done you’re free for the rest of the day -- the quicker it happens the quicker you get to go out and have fun.” The ship landed with a gentle thud, Aric’s hands sure on the controls. “Havoc Squad, dismissed,” she said. They scattered and she clipped her regulation blaster onto her belt in the armory, Aric doing the same. He was still a little fuzzy, she could tell -- obviously he’d been very firmly asleep when she’d commed him. 

“You okay?” She asked.

“Yes sir,” he said. 

They were halfway to Garza’s office when she saw him stiffen in the speeder next to her, eyes widening in panic. “Oh. Oh _ shit,” _ he said.

“What?”

“Did I hear you put Elara and Yuun on laundry duty?”

She felt her heart hammer against her chest. “Yes. Is there a problem, Captain?”

“Your… uh…. I stuffed your shorts and your…”

“What?” 

“They’re  _ under my pillow, Major.” _

Oh. Oh  _ shitting fuck.  _ She scrambled for the comm. Pulled it out even as the speeder swerved and Aric’s hand came down on the steering column.

“Let me,” he said, taking the comm from her, then stopping. “What… what do I tell them?”

She had a complete mental break. No words would come. “Don’t… do laundry…?”

“What excuse am I going to give?”

“I don’t know!”

Aric looked at the comm unit in his hand, and then back up at her. “I…”

She desperately tried to remember which underpants she’d had on before they’d… it was hard. She’d grabbed a pair from her drawer in the morning. She’d done a workout… so she’d showered once… then grabbed another pair from the … other… drawer.

There was no way in a Corellian hell they were going to mistake them for a pair of Aric’s.

“Okay.” She gripped the steering column so tight that her hands started to cramp, her mind racing. This was just… a tactical problem. She could work it out. “Okay. It’s okay. Sometimes... the laundry gets messed up, right? My shorts and my pants just got caught in your linens. No problems.”

There.

Aric opened his mouth. Then he shut it, looking furtive. “Uh…”

“What?”

“It’s okay,” he said.

“What’s okay?”

“Look they’re not cathar so they won’t notice, it’s  _ okay.” _

She shut her eyes. Which was a bad idea when they were driving. Opened them again. 

She was not going to make the connection.

Not going to go the logical route.

_ Shut the fuck up don’t make the connection Brill don’t... _

_ Do it _ … “You could…”

Cathar couldn’t blush, not under all that fur. “Didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night, sir,” he said. “And not for the usual reason.”

_ “Goddess.” _

She parked the speeder under the senate tower, getting out stiffly, wondering how the hell she was going to face Garza knowing that Aric had spent the rest of the night, after they’d fucked on the countertop of the kitchen only a few metres away from the rest of the squad, distracted enough not to sleep by  _ the smell of her underwear. _

Aric cleared his throat, waiting for her to move, and she took a deep breath. She was the fucking Commander of Havoc Squad. She could do this. “We are going to have words, Captain Jorgan,” she said. 

“Yeah. I mean. Yes, sir. Sorry sir.”


	20. Regulations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And things turn a little feelsy for Aric and Brill NO NOT LIKE THAT although it'll probably end up that way knowing these two.

They got back to the ship after the debriefing to find Elara and Yuun had completed laundry. There was no mention of the underpants or the shorts, and Aric didn’t know whether he should be grateful or worried. If Brill had put Vik on laundry, well, that would have been a different story, and Aric could be grateful for that, although part of him was beginning to think they just needed to get this thing out into the open.

Garza had taken their report and given them some R&R on Coruscant -- probably only one or two days, she said. Time enough for them to recover from Belsavis. Do some personal stuff. He’d been meaning to write to his parents for weeks now, but he’d let it slide the way he always did. A brief holo message, every now and then, was really all he could manage, but his mom, at least, appreciated it when he took the time to write properly.

He dismissed the rest of the crew, and as he’d expected, everyone took themselves off ship. It was hard on them, being stuck in hyperspace for as long as they had been. He knew Vik, at least, would hit a bar. Elara would probably go to a library or something and read up on regulations. Yuun would… do whatever it was Yuun did with his free time. But none of them wanted to be on board if they didn’t have to be, not even Forex, who liked to wander the republic museums and relive old glories.

Aric could have gone out as well, he supposed, except that Brill was in her quarters, and they were for the first time since Belsavis, actually alone.

He didn’t want to be anywhere she wasn’t, and it was time he admitted that to himself.

He wasn’t ready to barge in there and declare his feelings, though, so he sat himself down at the holoterminal on the bridge and wrote the letter to his parents that he should have written weeks ago. He was just finishing up when Brill came in -- he didn’t like to tell her that he could smell when she was around -- from previous experience he knew that non-cathar weren’t too keen on the idea that they smelled at all -- but sometimes he could trace the paths she took through the ship when he wasn’t there just by shutting his eyes and letting the scent take over.

Since they’d slept together there’d been a sharp edge to that scent that kept him awake at night. Much as he didn’t want to go back to the stage where they’d been dancing around each other, thinking about each other, wanting each other, he wasn’t sure if the current stage was very good for either of them. He knew his work was suffering, knew he wasn’t as alert or as composed as he should be. Maker the debacle in the kitchen, while it made him hot all over to remember, was something that absolutely shouldn’t have happened. He’d put both their careers in jeopardy

She’d stopped in the doorway of the bridge, one hand, holding a datapad, tucked behind her tchun, eyes bleary, a steaming cup of caf in her hand. She still wore fatigues but they were decidedly non-regulation now, cuffs undone, jacket off and her shirt unbuttoned low enough that he could see the swell of her breasts under her tank top.

“Thought you’d gone out with the others,” she said.

He leaned back, shaking his head. “Figured I could use some peace and quiet, especially given our next assignment.”

She sat in the copilot’s seat, putting one bare foot up on the dash. “Could use some sleep,” she said.

He nodded. He was bone tired, no doubt about it, the last few nights hadn’t been restful for many and varied reasons. “What do you have there?”

“Elara left it on my desk, I was just going to sort through it. Probably supply requests or budget stuff.”

He hummed in agreement, not quite willing to get up and go about his day yet, just happy to be in her company.

She started flicking through the datapad, and he heard her give a sharp intake of breath. “What?” he said.

She groaned, flicking more urgently through the data, then threw the pad on the console, one hand covering her eyes. _“What?”_ he said again.

“Take a look,” she said.

He leaned forward and picked up the pad, curious now, what could have provoked that reaction.

“She’s done a datadump of the regs code,” he said, glancing at it. “Article… _oh sweet maker,_ article 36, section 4. _On Fraternisation Between Officers on Active Duty…”_

Brill had her caf cup pressed to her forehead as though she could imbibe the liquid inside directly through her skin. “Guess she found my underpants,” Brill said.

He skimmed through a few paragraphs. Dry as all hell, like most regs, but... “You know, I’m not overly familiar with this section...” Brill snorted. “ _Quiet,_ you.”

“At least she didn’t send a holo to Garza as soon as she found them,” Brill was saying as he continued to read.

“No, this is actually pretty interesting,” Aric said.

“You’re actually reading them?”

“It’s been a while since basic training, sir.” He continued to skim, re-reading a few sections, the familiar cadences and jargon a bit difficult to parse until he fell back into the rhythm of it. “Uh. Well. We weren’t involved when you gave me the XO spot, so that one doesn’t count and uh… Garza gave me the Captaincy so… uh huh… okay. Oh well.” He looked up from the datapad. “We’ve broken a few regs, Major. But most of them aren’t punishable so long as we fill out the proper forms.”

She blinked. “What. There are forms?”

“Yeah. I mean. We can ask permission from your direct superior officer and Elara has… ah.. Helpfully offered to be a witness to the fact that neither of us were taking advantage of each other...”

Her lekku twitched and she looked down. “Taking advantage, Captain?”

“Apparently there’s precedent for superior officers uh… abusing their station. Sir. Not that you did that. By any stretch of the imagination.”

She was blushing, furiously. He’d never seen that shade of blue on her cheeks before. “I… wouldn’t… you’re… that’s...”

“Of course you wouldn’t but... “ he swallowed. “Well now we’ve got a different problem on our hands, I guess.”

“How so?”

He took a breath. “Past week has been… intense. I can’t stop thinking about you, can’t… can’t get enough of you. Last night was a dam bursting and I… well I don’t know if I’m going to be able to bottle it up again if we…”

“If we…?”

He cleared his throat. “If we decide to stop.”

She froze, and he wanted to kiss away the shadow of hurt that he could see in her eyes. “You want to….”

‘No! No I don’t want to. I definitely absolutely do not want to stop… doing whatever it is we’re doing. Sir. But. If we don’t follow the procedures Elara’s given us… there’s a chance we’ll end up reassigned away from each other. I mean. We couldn’t even keep it secret for two weeks, chances are the rest of the crew are going to find out pretty damned fast and once that happens it’s only a matter of time before it gets back to brass. We can’t be punished if we request permission now. But if we wait, well. They’re not going to go easy on us.”

“Okay, so we… fill out the forms?” She said it like a question. “Make it official.”

“Yeah,” Aric said. Then he coughed. “I mean, if you want to. I mean…”

“Yes,” she said, quickly. “Yes I want to. Do you want to?”

“Fuck yes.”

She gave a little relieved laugh at that. “Thank the goddess. I thought you were going to… I don’t know. It felt like you were…”

“...trying to break it off?”

“Yeah.”

He reached forward, took the hand that didn’t have her caf in it, ran his fingers over the calloused blue skin. “I’m not going to claim to be the smartest guy in the galaxy, Brill, but I’d have to be out of my mind to give up the chance to be with you.”

She smiled then, and it was astonishing, the brightest thing he’d ever seen, and help him but he’d fallen so hard he’d hit bottom years ago and there wasn’t anything that could make him climb back up again, even if he wanted to.

“I… you... “ she stopped. Looked down and took a breath, then looked up. “You mean a lot to me, Aric, and I don’t want to lose you.”

The warmth that spread out from his chest had nothing at all to do with sex and he just sat there for a minute. Basking in her regard. Stars he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this but he wasn’t going to squander it.

“Elara left a note at the bottom,” he said then. _Thank you Lieutenant,_ he thought.

“She did?”

“She’s ordered the crew to stay off ship for the next twenty-four hours or until they’re called for. Told you to uh… think about things. I’m guessing she figured you’d read right to the end of the regulations. Eventually.”

“I would have if you hadn’t taken them from me.”

He grinned. She was by the book, his major, another reason why he…

“So we’re… uh… alone. For a while.”

“No interruptions,” she said, edging a little closer to him.

“None,” he said.

She leaned forward, putting her caf on the dashboard, letting her hands rest on his thighs. He had an absolutely glorious view down her shirt, but his eyes crept up to her face where he found her gently smiling at him.

“Why don’t you come to my quarters,” she said.

 


	21. Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So discussions with Defira have lead to interesting areas w/r/t cathar physiology and I know these particular headcanons aren't exactly supported by the text (given the trooper and Aric do tend to kiss on the mouth a lot) but unfortunately this little headcanon is very firmly canon in my universe. So. Um. Enjoy. (and in case you hadn't already guessed, Brill and Aric are having more sex, because I am VERY PREDICTABLE).

She took his hand and helped him up, turning and leading him down the stairs to her quarters. It was weird, being able to touch him, being… open about it, even though the rest of the crew weren’t even on board, she’d spent so long thinking about it and the reality was… nothing like she expected. 

Inside her quarters, she keyed the door shut, just in case Vik decided to barge in against Elara’s orders (wouldn’t be the first time he’d decided to ignore something his superiors wanted from him) to find Aric standing looking at her, almost at parade rest. “Uh…” he said.

“Problem, Captain?”

“Well it feels weird. To be able to do this without…”

“Worrying?”

“Yeah.”

She stepped forward until she was close enough to feel his breath ghosting on her cheek. “It’s nice too though, right?” she said, reaching up to cup his cheek. He made a small humming noise as her fingers made contact, leaned his head towards her until their foreheads touched. She was a little taller than him. Funny how she’d never really noticed that before.

His hands came up to rest on her waist and he tugged her gently until their hips met. “Mmmm,” he was saying. “Very nice, actually.” He nuzzled underneath her jaw, opening his mouth and letting his teeth touch her skin, just gently, it was enough to make her breath hitch. He gave her a gentle nip and the hitch turned into a gasp. “Maker when you make those sounds…” he lifted a hand and smoothed over her tchun, once, then again with his claws out, the lightest of scrapes. She felt her knees go weak and she let out a groan. Aric hissed and used his other hand to pull her closer against him. “They drive me wild.”

“No one can hear us, today,” she said. “I can be as noisy as you want me to be.”

“Dammit,” he took hold of her hips then, and moved her towards the bed. “Wanted to make it last longer this time,” he said. “You’re making it difficult.”

She reached down, used her fingers to trace the outline of his cock through the fabric of his pants, finding it gratifyingly hard. He caught her wrist, pulling her hand away and bringing it up to his mouth, pressing his lips to her palm, then letting the rough edge of his tongue scrape along it.

She sat on the bed, then, reaching for his belt, and he stopped her hands. “Trying to make it last, remember?” he said.

She grinned. “Oh, yes I do,” she said, deftly undoing his belt and unbuttoning his pants. “I’m curious,” she said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his stomach -- his fur thinned out a little, there, dwindling to just a light covering. “Have you… been with anyone… other than Cathar before?”

She looked up into his face to see him with his head cocked, quizzical. “Interesting question to ask, at this point,” he said.

“I’m not worried about… you know I wouldn’t give a fuck about previous partners,” she said. 

“I figured you wouldn’t.”

“It’s just that there’s things that… well. I’ve been with non-twi’leks. There are differences.”

“Well yeah,” he said, then hissed in a breath as she started lightly brushing her fingers up and down over his cock, still inside his pants, never gripping, just light touches. His breath was coming in shorter, sharper gasps and his hands moved to her shoulders, gripping them with claws out.

“I was just curious if you’ve ever…” she stopped. “Ever…”

“I’ve never been with a twi’lek before,” he said. “If that’s what you’re asking. Or a human. Uh. Kinda been cathar only for me.”

She eased his pants down so his cock was exposed, but stopped him when he moved to kick them all the way off. “Anatomically -- cathar women… they’re the same as you are? I mean. With things like…” she looked up at him, into his eyes. “Their tongues, for example.”

He drew in a long, deep breath. “Uh huh,” he said. “We’re pretty much the same apart from…” she heard him give a slight squeak as she wrapped one hand around the base of his cock “obvious… differences... oh  _ kriff _ Brill what are you…  _ doing…” _

She leaned forward and sucked the tip of his cock into her mouth, then bobbed deeper, using her tongue to press against the underside and sucking gently.

“Sweet… fucking… maker,” his claws pricked to the top of her head and she felt him slowly relax his hands as though he was forcing himself not to hurt her, only to clench again as she swirled her tongue around the tip of him. “ _ Please _ do not stop doing that… Oh my fucking...”

She pulled back and pushed forward again, trying to take in as much as she could. It’d had been a while since she’d done this, but noises he was making suggested she probably wouldn’t have to do it for very long and they were striking her at her very core, every time he growled, every time he gasped she felt a sharp spike of pleasure that drove her to take him deeper, and deeper, until she hit a rhythm that was familiar. 

“Brill… oh  _ fuck _ Brill I’m going to… you have to…”

She hummed around him, heard him babble something in catharese and felt him convulse, and suddenly her mouth was filled with the salty taste of him, three hard, fast spurts as his hips jerked and he let out a cry that was half roar.

She spat to the side, making a note to clean it up later, then looked up at him. He had his mouth open and his eyes closed, head tipped up towards the roof.

She rested her head on his hip for a moment, catching her breath and smiling. Felt his hand on her head then, gently stroking down in between her lekku then up again. “Wow,” he said.

She looked up. “I’m guessing cathar don’t give many blow jobs,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not so many,” he said. “I’ve… ah… well. I’ve read about them.”

She smirked. “Really? You’ve read about them?” 

He coughed. “Never mind,” he said, sitting on the bed, letting out a long breath.

She grinned, and sat next to him, tucking her feet under her.

“That was  _ supposed  _ to last longer,” he said.

“We’ve still got a lot of hours, Aric.” 

“Right now I don’t feel like I could ever get it up again,” he said. “You need a commendation, Major.” She buried her face in his shoulder, laughing. “I’ve still got my fucking boots on,” he said mildly, then made as if to bend over and take them off, before flopping back on the bed. “I can’t. Medical discharge, sir, I’m unable to complete any further duties. My CO sucked my brain out through my cock.”

She giggled harder, then sat up and made as if to help him pull his boots off. He groaned and pushed her away. 

“I can kriffing do it,” he said, and he dropped them over the side of the bed, shucking off his pants and his shirt at the same time. She hesitated a moment, then did the same -- there was no reason they had to be clothed right now and the room was warm enough, while they were in port, without the chill of space around them.

He flopped back down on the bed again but she shoved him off, pulling down the covers and making him get under them. 

“You said you were tired,” she said, when he made a small sound of protest, and he obviously was -- his eyes were heavy lidded and his limbs were almost boneless.

“Need to… sort you out…” he said, even as his head hit the pillow. She stroked the fur on his skull, kissed the top of his head. 

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll wake you if I get too frisky.”

He chuckled, then pulled her into his arms as she adjusted the covers over them. She was just as ready as he was to sleep, she realised, and the beat of his heart under her ear cone, the slight rumble of his purr, was enough.  _ He _ was enough.


	22. Sweet Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere after Cipher Nine's mind control begins, but before Watcher X starts the process of curing her. I cannot fathom how male agents get through this damned storyline without Vector there to be Vector, Kaliyo, much as I love her, lacks a certain amount of empathy.

She found him in the cargo bay, as she’d suspected he would be. 

“Agent,” he greeted her, giving the slight bow she knew was a gesture of respect. He had become less and less formal with her, in the weeks before Kothe had used her trigger word. That the formality was creeping back into their interactions made her heart constrict in her chest. They would deny her everything. Everything that gave her comfort. She wanted to kill them all.

“Vector do you have a moment?” she asked.

“We always have time for you,” he said. “How can we help?”

She stepped towards him. Then closer, expecting at every moment to be denied, for her body to shut down, for the wooden tone to creep into her voice as she gave some kind of excuse. 

She made it close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. Vector smelled like sunlight and sweet things -- the honey her mother had managed to procure from the trader in the spaceport, a rare taste of warmth in the endless cold of home that made her think longingly of life outside the Ascendency. His presence was similar -- a warm solid wall of support and security that made coming back to the ship something to make her sob…

… were she allowed to show any emotion other than those sanctioned by her conditioning.

Their time together did not feel tainted, as her time everywhere else seemed to. His calm, measured tone, the touch of his hand, the sense of his presence, all of it felt real.

“Agent?” he said, questioning, but not worried.

“Vector,” she said.

It felt natural to reach up to him, to trace the fine lines around his eyes, to cup his cheek in one hand and lean upwards and press her lips to his.

His arm came around her waist and he pulled her gently closer, his lips opening, his heart rate increasing. Did joiners feel passion the same way she did? She wasn’t sure, but she knew she wanted this, and it was a want that for once, was not being denied.

The kiss was over faster than she would have liked, and she pulled back to see Vector blink, head cocked to one side.

“Agent,” he said, softly, raising one hand to brush her cheekbone. “We were aware you felt affection for us. We are pleased you choose to act upon it.”

“You’re pleased?” she said, smiling slightly. “Well that’s a relief.”

His hand stroked her skin and she felt her eyes wishing to close, leaning in to the touch. She felt as though if he could only touch her enough he could see what was wrong, would know, instinctively, how to fix it. 

“We did not make any secret of our own attraction to you,” he said. “Were we not explicit enough?”

She laughed, resting her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat against her ear. He sounded different, to most humans, although it was difficult to place exactly how. A resonance, perhaps. An echo of the hive.

“Perhaps I just needed the courage to make the first move,” she said.

“You have never lacked for courage,” he said. “And we hope we would never give you cause to fear us.”

“I couldn’t fear you, ever, Vector,” she said, reaching up to kiss him again. He pulled her closer with a little more urgency this time, his tongue flicking across her lips with skill that she would have attributed to his kilik memories. It was certainly enough to make her breath come more quickly. But she felt his hand stroking down the back of her neck, holding her still as he lifted his head, his other hand coming to cup her cheek.

“We would like, more than anything, to continue this, Agent,” he said. “But your aura is disturbed.” He hesitated. “We did not like to mention it, but now that you are here... it has been like that for weeks.”

She shook her head, tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth, reaching up again to him, but he caught her hand in his. 

“We need to know that you are well,” he said, firmly, then his face softened. “And we need you to know that we are here for you.”

She could not speak. She tried. She fought it with every inch of her will. The words would not come. 

He frowned. “It flares,” Vector said. “A darkness. A desire. You are suffering.” His voice cracked, as though he could feel what she felt, the frustration, the anger. She wanted to weep, but tears were denied her, like everything else. He brought her hand to his lips, kissed it gently. “Whatever you are suffering, Agent, we will do everything in our power to ensure it does not continue. But we will not let you make decisions now that may affect you later. Not, at least, when it comes to us.” He lifted her chin, thumb and finger pressing with infinite gentleness. “This, and you, are too important to us. We wish you to know this.”

“Will you…” she could speak, now, although she had to navigate the words carefully. “Will you hold me, Vector? Please.”

“Of course, Agent,” he said, pulling her into his arms. She rested her head on his chest, feeling his arms come around her, one hand cupping the back of her head, the steady beat of his heart against her cheek enough to calm the rage boiling in her chest, if not douse it completely.

He was here. That was enough for now.

 


	23. Bend and Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vopenir and Quinn's first time. Because she's been very cranky with me about only writing smut for Brill lately and I'm replaying her and GODDAMMIT QUINN I HATE/LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU HANDSOME REPRESSED BASTARD.

“I must officially request to be reassigned.”

She blinked. Baras’ work, this must be. They worked too well together as a team. She was a threat to her master, she had known that since the first day she walked into his chambers on Dromund Kaas. And now he would chip her allies from her, prepare her for the slaughter.

It would not happen. Not to her. And not to those she cared for.

She crossed her arms over her chest and considered Captain Malavai Quinn. So very handsome, despite the years that separated them, lines around his eyes and that single kiss of grey at his temple promising knowledge and experience that so many of her lovers had lacked. And the passion that ran in a current underneath it all, so rich a font that she was determined to tap.

Right now he was unable to meet her eyes, looking straight past her at the wall, although his posture aside from that was perfect parade rest, hands clasped tightly behind him.

“No,” she said. 

He blinked. “My lord. I cannot… thoughts of you have begun to… I am unable…” his words, usually so carefully chosen, were halting. She could feel the tension in him, drawn so tight, it would need only the right push, the correct amount of pressure…

Oh how she wanted him to snap.

“If you simply give in to your desires, Quinn, this would cease to be a problem.”

“I…”

She stepped towards him. “I can feel your passion. I know what you require. Why do you struggle so desperately against it?”

He swallowed. “If we were involved we might not… it is not professional of us… we…”

She reached up and placed one finger on his lips. “I am sith, Malavai. I am ruled by my passions, they fuel me, they give me power beyond your wildest dreams.” With her other hand she lightly touched the buttons on his pristine and perfect uniform. He watched her fingers, breath coming faster. She let the hand touching his lips slowly trace their shape before she took his chin gently between thumb and forefinger. “You can be the fuel to my fire, Captain, if you will only take that final step. There will be nothing I cannot accomplish.”

“You believe that if I… if we do this, that you will be stronger?”

“As will you,” she said. “Your head will be clear, you will have the concentration to finish your tasks, I will make certain that if any thoughts of me begin to distract you… well. We can deal with distraction in a timely and professional manner, Malavai.” She leaned up, brushing her cheek against his. “As many times as you wish, where ever you wish,  _ whatever  _ you wish.  I will be yours to command.” 

He was as still as a frightened animal, but she could feel the hot puff of his breath against her cheek.

“I must not…” he said, his voice cracking. “I cannot allow this to rule me. I am not sith. My desires, my wants will not serve me as they serve you. This is a torment, my lord I cannot in all conscience continue to serve when I…”

She dropped both her hands and stepped back, anger surging through her. “You agreed to serve me,” she said. “You pledged your loyalty to me.”

“I am not strong enough…”

“You do not  _ have  _ to be strong enough!”

He licked his lips. “If you would  _ order _ me to your bed I could not disobey…”

She snarled. “I will not take from you something that you  _ wish  _ to give me  _ freely,” _ she said, turning away.

His hand on her arm stopped her, gripping tight. The only times he had ever touched her, before now, had been when she was wounded. He spun her, so she was facing him, eyes searching her face. 

“I do wish it,” he said, almost choking. 

“As do I,” she said. “I would beg you, Quinn, if I thought it would make any difference at all. I would…”

“You would beg me?” he asked.

“I  _ want _ you, Quinn,” she said, reaching up to touch his face again. He shut his eyes. “I would have you. Here. I would let you take me in any way you wished, right now.”

He let out a whimper that was half groan and lunged forward, kissing her, slamming her up against the wall of the cockpit. She gasped against his mouth, gripping his head as he did his best to kiss her breath away, hands at her waist, moving down to cup her ass and pull her flush against him. She bucked her hips against him, making him groan into her mouth as his hand came up and gripped her by her hair, kissing her even more ferociously.

He broke the kiss and mouthed down her jaw to her neck, making small, needy sounds that sent spikes of desire through her, sharp enough to pierce her to her very core.

“Will you take me now then, Quinn?” she said, as he took her earlobe in his teeth, biting down hard enough to hurt. “I am more than ready for you.”

He pulled her up against him, growling, then turned, desperately, almost lifting her in his haste to get her to the console, shoving her down against it so he was hovering over her, unwilling to take his lips from her skin.

“I am sorry, my lord,” he gasped between kisses, blindly pulling at the clasps of her robes, fumbling in his desperation.

She gave a breathless chuckle. “Whatever for?”

“I cannot... I _ must _ …” his mouth was at her neck, sucking at her skin hard enough to bruise, even as he bucked against her, harder than durasteel, almost sobbing. “I  _ need…” _

“You need  _ me, _ ” she said, using her own hands to further his efforts, all but ripping the buttons apart, opening her robes so that her body was bare to him. He groaned, heartfelt and long, raising his hands to cup her breasts, stroking downwards so they rested at her hips.

“I am…  _ unworthy... _ ”

“Do not be ridiculous, Malavai,” she said. “You are  _ exactly  _ what I want. How could that possibly be unworthy?”

“My  _ lord.” _

“I want you inside me,” she said, running her hand down to the front of his ridiculously tight, regulation pants, feeling how hard he was. His breath turned even more shaky, and he covered her hand with his own, shutting his eyes. She grinned and deftly undid his belt so she could reach inside and grasp him, running her fingers up and down his cock.

“Ahh… as.. as you wish,” he said. They were against the console, and she shifted backwards so she was able to open to him. His chest was heaving, all ability to speak apparently gone, but he allowed her to guide him into her, all breath leaving his body in a single exhale as he slid home in a smooth, hard thrust.

“Yes,” she said, tipping her head back, feeling every inch of him as he filled her. “Yes! This is where you  _ belong _ , Malavai.”

He buried his head in her shoulder, lips mouthing at her skin, hands still holding her hips. She lifted one leg, hooking it around his back, one hand in his hair, and pulled his head towards her so her lips were at his ear.

“Fuck me,” she said.

He made a sound that might have been a word, pulled from the depths of his need, and thrust, once, hard. She had imagined it so many times, the reality was better, to feel him straining against her, still fighting for some measure of restraint, grasping at the last vestiges of his dignity.

_ That _ would not do.

A flicker of force energy, a touch of her will against his, not enough to make him do anything, no, she would not violate his trust, but enough to let him know what  _ she _ wanted. He blinked, his forehead close to hers, then started to move. A single thrust, long and slow, a second and his breath came faster and she saw him bite his lip, and a third…

“Faster,” she said.  _ “Harder.” _

He sucked in a breath.

And then he did as she asked. HIs hips snapped, one hand reached down to lift her up towards him so he could drive into her at a pace that quickly made her groan, to the point where she was being forced backwards on the console in very real danger of setting off an emergency beacon.

She could have called down the entire Imperial Fleet on their position right now, and she would not in any ways care.

“What you do to me,” he breathed as he moved. “I feel.. nnnh... I... have lost all control.” 

“Good,” she said, digging her nails into his arms, feeling the tight clench and release of his muscles as his body moved against her. He leaned down and nipped at her collarbone, one hand coming up to cup her breast, and she felt teeth against her skin as he thrust harder, at an angle that made her cry out. “Let me feel you,” she gasped. “Let me  _ hear  _ you.”   


“I…  _ Vopenir... _ ”

His thrusts became erratic, his breath coming in short pants and gasps that were punctuated by cries. She drank them in, drank in his face as his eyes closed and his mouth opened, the flush of red across his freckled cheeks, the shout as he pushed into her one last time, letting go,  _ finally,  _ letting her see through the blushes and the stammering and the deflections to the heart of passion within.

It was glorious. 

A few more thrusts and she shuddered with her own release, throwing back her head and feeling the force ripple around her. So much power. She was giddy with it. 

He collapsed over her, breath heaving, and she twined her fingers in his hair, gently tugging, then letting them run down to his neck and his still damnably tight collar. She smiled, gently loosening it for him as he turned his head towards her fingers and kissed them, kissed her palm, then down to her neck and under her chin.

“My lord,” he said, so quiet it was just a breath of air and a touch of lips against her skin. “You honour me.”

“Of course,” she said. “And I plan to honour you many more times tonight.” 

He breathed in sharply. “Your will is my desire,” he said.

She cupped his cheek. “To my quarters then, Captain,” she said. “We have much to discuss.”


	24. Finding Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron frets about Vopenir while she's in the wilderness on Odessen. Just a little snippet from Theron's POV because I love my trash disaster hottie.

_ Sit still, Theron, stop worrying Theron, no you can’t go out and look for her Theron the base needs you and do you really think you’d be better able to handle whatever she’s come up against than she would? No Theron. You don’t have the force Theron. You’re essentially, useless, Theron. _

He was driving Lana mad. He knew that. He was good at people, he knew when he was irritating someone, but sometimes it was so damned hard not to.

He prided himself on at least having the decency to take himself out of a situation where he was making everyone tense, so he went, to his quarters -- the one place on Odessen he’d barely been in the past few weeks, ever since Vopenir had come back he’d been in her quarters on the Fury, or her quarters here. This room, this small, hole in the wall that basically just held his clothes and his personal effects (of which there were very few, jedi training did tend to pare away all those things that might remind you of possible attachments) and nothing of her at all.

_ Kriff. _

He paced, for a while, trying not to be totally useless, trying to look at supply charts and logistics but his heart wasn’t in it. He contemplated going to see Brill, who at least knew him as well as Lana, but she was still in medbay and in need of rest and nutrition after her ordeal on Belsavis -- the last thing she needed was Theron going in and moping at her about Vopenir when Vopenir was the one who’d ordered her husband right into the arms of the enemy on Zakuul.

Yeah. Some friend he was.

He sat down at his workstation, and rested his head in his hands, running his fingers over his face. His implants had been giving him a bit of pain lately -- maintenance techs were in short supply and while he could do the basics of taking care of them himself there were some things that were going to need attention soon. Maybe he should arrange a visit to one of the core planets, if he could commandeer the Fury, get Vopenir to come with him…  have some sort of vacation…

...when she got back, that was.

He didn’t quite know how he started tapping through his files on his console, not until he’d brought up all the information that Lana had gathered on her. They’d both been researching the Emperor’s Wrath, before Manaan. After his disastrous partnership with Daroc, when he’d talked the Barsen’thor through the devastation of Tython -- and stars wasn’t that the beginning of everything going wrong, he would never forget the catch in Tobanok’s voice as she described the desecration of the temple she’d loved -- they’d both known they needed someone, someone who wasn’t them, to help them defeat the growing threat that was Revan. His stars cursed ancestor, who seemed determined to reach down through generations and fuck up his life, as if his parents weren’t doing enough of that already.

He’d thought Reilli Rahn was the logical choice to continue the fight, since Tobanok’ra had retreated to the council to help rebuild Tython, he’d even considered Brill as a choice to carry on the fight, but in the end he’d gone to Manaan by himself, and found Lana.

And Vopenir.

He’d read all the files. Of course he had. He’d argued with Lana when they’d gone to Rakata Prime, he’d laid out all his objections to working with the Wrath and she’d smiled at him and pointed out that he must have trusted her a little bit, surely, and Theron had  _ fought  _ it, he really had, but there had been something about her, from the first moment he’d heard her voice, he’d felt something.

Destiny, perhaps. He didn’t even believe in destiny any more no matter that he’d started his morning meditations again, no matter that he found himself remembering more and more Master Zho’s teachings as the years between him and the SIS got longer and he remembered why he’d joined in the first place.

He flicked through the paragraphs absently, not really reading the words, just wishing that he had something other than them to make his heart stop hammering against his ribs at the thought that she might be gone again. There were a few images, here and there, nothing very clear, a hooded figure on Balmorra, a flash of green skin bathed in the red light of Quesh -- she’d been good enough at covering her tracks at least when it came to official surveillance that he’d not known what she looked like before she’d washed up out of that escape pod on Manaan. 

Appearances weren’t really important, anyway, not in his line of work, although he could acknowledge that they might give an advantage in hers.

The wedding picture was unexpected. He didn’t remember it, from his original research. Perhaps it hadn’t been in the files until recently, he did know that their intelligence branch added things all the time and they weren’t confined to things about their enemies. His fingers on the keys hesitated a fraction before he brought it up, in full colour, hovering above his holo projector.

Captain Malavai Quinn and Darth Vopenir Aloni, taken some eight years ago now, give or take a few months. Malavai was in dress whites, looking… smug, he didn’t know, Quinn always had an air of smug about him although with Vopenir on his arm looking like that Theron really couldn’t blame him.

She wore a dress that was more like armor, really, glittering in whatever gentle light source they were bathed in, encasing her torso and accentuating the gentle curve between her breasts and her hips. It was sleeveless so he could see a good many of her tattoos, liquid green shimmersilk flaring out from her hips and falling in waves all the way to the ground. He’d never seen her in anything like it before, they’d never had the chance or the reason to dress in anything that wasn’t strictly practical and he didn’t remember the dress being in her belongings on the Fury. 

It was beautiful. She was beautiful, and standing next to Quinn with her hand resting lightly on his arm -- Quinn’s arm hooked around her waist as though it belonged there -- as though he wasn’t going to turn around and attempt to take her life not more than six months after the damned holo was taken…

He took a breath, tracing the line of her tattoos with his eyes, trying to calm himself down.  She’d told him those on her shoulders had been completed just before she was transferred for her final stage of training on Korriban. Those on her arms when she was given the title of Darth by Baras. There was a special one, one that he knew intimately these days, that she’d told him gleefully was the mark of Baras’ death.

He’d not known what to think of that, when she’d told him. That she’d thought killing someone was an important enough event to mark it into her flesh. Freedom, she’d called it, although she’d said it somewhat bitterly.  _ I paid enough for it, _ she’d said.  _ It should be marked. _

Since meeting him there had been no new markings and he wondered at that, suddenly, that a part of her heritage seemed to have… stopped. Perhaps she simply hadn’t had the time, or perhaps she didn’t want to mark what had been taken from her by Vitiate and Arcann. The years spent as a decoration, trapped and tormented by the voice of the emperor she had once served.

Perhaps she didn’t want to mark her body while Vitiate dwelled in it. 

He felt foolish, looking at a holo of her when she was probably only a few kilometres away, perfectly fine and able to take care of herself as she’d always been, but dread was crawling under his skin and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going desperately wrong, with the alliance, with her, with everything they’d been trying to build. The woman in the holo, for all her beauty, the confidence that she exuded, she wasn’t the Vopenir he knew, and he shut the holo off, leaning back in his chair and shutting his eyes, trying to remember exactly what she’d last said to him, and feeling lost and alone when he realised he couldn’t.

He’d just not thought, that it might be the last thing, and he hated that he’d not thought it.

He swallowed. Sat back upright and opened up his mail. He needed to tell her… something. Once, when she’d been in carbonite, he’d done this -- written her a letter. Tried to put his feelings into some sort of order. It wasn’t really an exercise for her, he realised now. It didn’t matter if she read it, although he could hope that she would. He needed something to stop the roiling in his gut, some way to define his feelings for himself.

So he began to write.


	25. One Minute, Thirty Six Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malavai treats a wound on Vopenir's shoulder. And other things.

By his calculations it had been fifty three hours, eighteen minutes since they had last had sex.

Not since they had first had sex, no, because then he would have to factor in that they had begun at least three hours prior to collapsing together in her bed on the Fury, both spent and satiated to a point he would happily confess he had never reached before. Naturally, he had indulged in physical intimacy before he had coupled with his lord, but he could quite safely claim never to have felt quite so completed, so satisfied, as he had when she had wrung his final climax from him and proclaimed herself content with their night’s work.

He had slept in her bed, wrapped in her scent and her sweat. For the first few hours he believed he had slept more soundly than he had ever slept in his life. When he had woken, however, and seen his lord’s head pillowed on his chest, dark hair tousled, mouth slightly open, one green leg flung over and between his own, he had found it very difficult to relax back into slumber.

She was so very beautiful.

_ Whenever and where ever you wish… _ she had promised to him.

She sat on the cot in medbay as he attended to the wound on her shoulder. Her eyes were calm and contemplative, when he allowed himself the luxury of meeting them. She was stripped to the waist, necessary, since he required access to her shoulder and collarbone to properly treat her plasma burn.

He was professional, and did not let his gaze linger more than normal on the dip of her collarbone, or the swell of her breast. He did not let his hands trace the shape of her tattoos as he applied kolto gel to her burn.

He had allowed himself to be distracted, once, when he had been off duty. For now he had a function, a job to perform, and he would not be seen lacking in his duties.

He taped the final bandage over the worst of the burn, smoothing it down with calm fingers.

“Am I well, then, Malavai?” she asked, lip quirking.

“Do be careful not to agitate the shoulder any more than is strictly necessary,” he said, reaching past her and picking up her tunic. It was torn and bloody (although the blood was not hers) and he made a face. “And try not to enter into fights when you are not fully armored, my lord,” he said. “You would not have been harmed at all, in your usual attire.”

She smiled. “I do not always choose when people decide to attack me, Malavai,” she said.

“Indeed, my lord,” he said. “I express merely a preference for your safety, rather than a directive.”

Her grin turned into a smile and she slid down from the cot, standing very close to him. “Do you have any other requirements of me?” she asked, low and soft, putting one hand to his arm. “Before I leave?”

It had been, by his calculations, fifty three hours, twenty-two minutes, since they had last had sex.

He swallowed.

“Requirements, my lord?”

Her fingers walked up his forearm to his elbow. She leaned up on her toes and whispered in his ear. “I can lock medbay so we are not interrupted,” she said. 

“Your… you should not do anything to put undue stress on your shoulder, my lord,” he said, proud of how level his voice sounded. She was closer now, pressing against his leg. A slight shift in her position and she would feel, without a doubt, that he would very much like some requirements attended to. A brief moment of contemplation. A decision. He was still uncertain what was allowed, what he could be expected to require. He was uncertain what he could bear. 

What he could bear to do without.

He moved, slightly, allowing his erection to brush against her stomach, letting her know precisely how much he desired her, and saw her eyes flutter closed and her mouth curve in a smile.

“I believe,” she said, licking her lips, “I can easily avoid hurting my shoulder.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked. “Strenuous exertion could very easily inhibit the function of the…” she sank to her knees in front of him, “...kolt…oh...” she was practiced, and efficient, and before he could react his belt was undone and her calloused, green fingers had found his cock... “ _ oh…”  _ he breathed.

“If you do not touch it,” she said, looking up at him, “I believe it will heal perfectly well.”

“Well then,” he said softly. “Where do you suggest… “ she was lightly running her fingers up and down his cock now, not quite enough, and not in the right spots, to put him in danger of ending this prematurely, but certainly enough to make him twitch and want to moan. With effort, he kept his hips still. With effort, he managed to form words without releasing the moan that was trapped in his throat. “Where do you suggest I put my hands, my lord?”

She took one of his hands in hers, and led it to the top of her head, smoothing it down until it met the tie that kept the long dark strands out of her face. Then she gripped him, fingers digging into his skin indicating what she wanted him to do, and he did groan then, as his fingers tangled in her hair, as she pulled it loose, as she encouraged him to clench and push. 

She opened her mouth and he guided his cock into it, but she stopped as that wet heat enveloped him. For a moment he simply breathed, reveling in the sensation, then he raised an eyebrow in question. She could not smile, not like this, not without endangering him with her teeth, but he could see her eyes crinkle, and he gave an experimental thrust, small, short, into her mouth.

She gave a pleased hum, the vibrations around him forcing breath from his mouth. He drew back and thrust again, slowly, gently, making sure not to go too far.

Her eyes turned flat.  _ That _ was not what she wanted. 

He swallowed, hardly believing what she was asking, hoping that he was not wrong, then pulled back and thrust deep into her throat, holding her head to him, feeling the muscles of her throat work around his length.

She took him, for a moment, then he felt her throat convulse as she gagged and he pulled back, concerned, almost all the way out of her mouth. She gripped his hips then, and stopped him from withdrawing entirely. Tears had gathered at the edges of her eyes and saliva pooled around him, but she was silent and still and  _ wanting  _ in a way that was unmistakable.

She was capable of killing him with a gesture, he reminded himself. It did nothing to quell his desire. 

She swirled her tongue around the tip of his cock, nodding her head slightly, and he took hold of her hair again.

“Your will is my desire,” he said. She did smile then, a slight brush of teeth, but as he pulled back in preparation to thrust forward again the smile fell away. 

He fucked her mouth. Thrust himself into her again and again as her large, clear eyes watched him, tracing his expressions. He had never had anyone so much at his mercy before, no other lover had so willingly submitted to this for him, yet he knew, implicitly, that he was not the one in control here. 

No, he was so far from control it could have been laughable, if it weren’t for the heat building in his core, if he could bring himself to think of anything other than her lips around him, her hands on his hips, her hair in his fingers. 

She took him without complaint. The tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes spilled over, her face was messy with sweat and saliva, her hair sticking to the sides of her face and twisted in his fist as he gripped it and used it to force her mouth down over him, again, and again. Wet, tight,  _ glorious _ heat.

He came in her mouth, almost snarling in pleasure, holding her head to him as he pumped himself empty. She swallowed him down, humming in appreciation, laving him with her tongue once he was done, sucking him completely clean.

He leaned against the cot, breath heaving, as she got to her feet. She brushed her hand through his hair. Leaned forward and pressed her lips to his temple.

“My thanks, Malavai,” she said. “I shall be sure to be careful with my shoulder.”

She left medbay. He swallowed. Straightened his pants. Turned to the medical monitor to begin the treatment log.

It had been one minute, thirty six seconds since they had last had sex.


	26. On Your Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aric musings about the new Havoc Squad Sergeant.

There was a dance, one that had been played out forever, or at least as long as there had been military, and Aric wasn’t a history student so he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone how long that was. Longer than he was comfortable thinking back on, any way.

You were a grunt, you got stomped on and shouted at, you got ground into dust until you worked out that the dust couldn’t hurt you, you got slapped down and you bounced back. COs across time did it, and when you stepped into the role you passed it down because anything else, breaking the mould, would be a violation of everything every grunt before you had had to put up with.

He had his doubts about its effectiveness, some days. He wondered if perhaps there were a few recruits out there who would respond better to being nurtured, told they were good at something, built up rather than broken down.

But in the end he figured those types were probably better off in the SIS. Or a desk job somewhere. In the end, you shot down your recruits and your rookies because once they were in the field that’s what the enemy would do, and if you couldn’t get up after being verbally beaten down there was no way in hell you were getting up from blaster fire.

He wasn’t a philosopher. He was here to do a job.

They pushed back at you, some of them. Or they looked down, meek and upset, trying to hide it and failing because he’d seen that look before. Hell he’d probably had that look on his face ten years ago, when his old CO had chewed him out over some stupid thing he’d done. Point was you could pick who was going to push back and who was going to crumble under pressure.

The new sergeant though? She was that rare breed who did neither.

He questioned her ability, and she simply went out and did the job, proving him wrong.

He chewed her out for a failure that they both knew wasn’t hers, and she nodded and said she’d do better next time.

He tried to get on her back, and she just shifted those wide, blue shoulders of hers and he slid right off.

Nothing got to her. 

She was calm and unflappable and completely and utterly by the book. Like a regulation had walked off the pages and into a uniform. Unsmiling. Competent. 

Really fucking tall.

He found himself admiring her, even as he tried to find a way under her skin. Wondered what had made her that way, and made a note to look it up when they weren’t chasing seps and a fucking great bomb all across Ord Mantell. Maybe they’d work together again, after this OP, although Havoc Squad never stayed in one place for long, and he was resigned to them swooping in and out and leaving the rest of them to mop up the mess. Aric knew there was a long road to travel before the Republic was willing to give up on this planet and there was still good he could do here, as long as brass wanted him to stay and valued his work, well, he wasn’t in control of where they put him, any more than she was.

So he’d watch her do her job and then watch her go and maybe in five years they’d cross paths again -- maybe he’d be Captain by then, maybe she’d be commanding her own squad.

He could admit it to himself, while she was off doing her job, that when that day came, he’d be pleased.


	27. Contingency Report

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for this.

When he woke from the bacta tank, he set himself to work on Baras’ network of spies. Of course, there were those in the council who desperately desired to claim Baras’ power. His influence, his choice of apprentices, the ties of obligations that were bound to him from decades of careful planning -- these things could conceivably be salvaged by a sith with the right amount of respect and command.

Vopenir would have been the natural choice. But she professed no desire to claim Baras’ legacy as her own, when he had dared to suggest that they investigate it she had laughed. A year passed, Baras was cold in his grave and then had come Shan and Revan and his life had been shattered (again) and he had taken the few threads and leads he had managed to cultivate in the belief that one day she would wish to pursue them with him when he had gone.

Intelligence --  _ sith  _ Intelligence, had been pleased enough to take them from him. He had handed them over blankly, because it was his duty to the Empire, because once again, that duty took precedence over his duty to her... 

...save one single thread that he pursued in his own time, because he felt he needed to close a book on something that he should never have opened.

And that was how he found her.

 

The moon was on the outer rim, and he was sure the locals had given it some name, but in the star charts it was listed simply as KX-32 and he felt no need to adjust its name in his records. 

It was inhabited, barely, an agricultural world that produced enough to support its population, no more, perhaps a little less. It was out of sight and mind to Empire and Republic alike -- precisely the kind of planet that Quinn had found Baras favoured for these kinds of… projects. No one would come here by accident. No one would come here on purpose, either, unless they wished to disappear.

There was barely even a spaceport, and once he alighted from his shuttle he had to negotiate with locals in a bastardised patois to discover the address he needed, to find a route to the coordinates he had uncovered.

A farm, on the outskirts of a tiny town. A hut, functional, and somewhat wealthier than others he had seen in the area -- a mark of Baras’ favour, he guessed.

A small, overheated room. A middle aged woman. And the girl.

 

Her skin was a far paler green than her mother’s had been -- he had seen full blooded mirialans with skin that pale, but not often -- free of traditional tattoos and dotted with freckles. There was very little to distinguish her looks -- a child so young was rarely blessed with strength of features enough to leave a lasting impression on anyone, but as she gazed up at him, firmly grasping the hand of the human woman who professed to be her carer, he could not help but recognise the precise shade of blue in those large eyes.

He saw that shade in the mirror, every morning.

Deep, black hair was combed back and neatly held in a braid down her back, and her chin lifted as he studied her with a hint of something that made his heart ache.

“My instructions were to care for her as though she were my own,” the woman said, although there was an edge to her voice that Quinn did not like at all. 

“Baras’ instructions have changed,” he said. “The girl is to come with me.”

The woman shifted. He suspected she was not an unscrupulous person. Baras would not have wanted the child damaged, not, at least, until he could use that damage against them, but there were forms to be followed.

“I assure you you will be adequately compensated for her absence,” he said, reaching for his credit chip.

The woman’s eyes cleared and her grip on the child’s shoulder lessened. “She’s a good girl,” she said. “Been no trouble to us. I hope you remember us well to her father.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Her father?”

She blinked. “Darth Baras.” 

Quinn’s nostrils flared and he saw the woman take a step back in sudden fear. It took him a moment to realise his hand had dropped to his blaster, took him a moment to smooth the snarl from his lips.

“Darth Baras is  _ not _ her father,” he said. The child -- Valdin her name was, he reminded himself -- had not stepped back with her carer. Instead she stood, calm and still, considering him with those blue eyes.

“As you say, m’lord,” the woman said, clearly not caring one way or another. She lived so far away from the Empire, she did not even know that her mentor was dead, only that every month credits were delivered to her account to carry out a duty that had no meaning for anyone save himself any longer.

It was not her fault. 

He swallowed and looked down at his datapad, making a quick transfer of funds. She would continue to receive the stipend from Darth Baras’ estate -- he saw no reason to cancel it, despite his lingering anger at her misattribution.

It was not  _ her fault,  _ he reminded himself again. Baras was three years in his grave and had no power over any of them any more.

When he was done he looked up at the woman, who was holding a small satchel. “Her things,” she said. “She don’t want for much, a toy here and there, mostly keeps to herself. Sleeps through the night, although I’ve had some her age that start to wake if they’re in unfamiliar places. You ever looked after a child her age before?”

She was no more than three, Quinn guessed. Which would mean she had been born shortly after their marriage. Baras had almost certainly seen his involvement with Vopenir as a weakness he could exploit. 

He would not pretend that the child was meant as leverage for Vopenir. She had never been concerned with legacy, only survival. This particular scheme of his former master’s was entirely for use against Quinn.

He was once again, more than grateful that Vopenir had killed him when she had the chance. “I am adequately prepared to care for her,” he said.

The woman snorted, obviously skeptical, and Quinn felt another surge of resentment, moving forward to take the bag she was holding. She handed it over, and then knelt down to nod at Valdin.

“You can go with him,” she said. “He’ll look after you.”

Quinn swallowed and did his best to smooth his expression. Valdin, for her part, didn’t seem distressed at the prospect of going with Quinn, although he suspected that would change once she was out of familiar surroundings. He shouldered the bag and nodded to her.

“Come, Valdin,” he said, and turned, walking towards the door. When he got there she was not beside him, and he looked back. She was standing, eyes wide and staring.

“Go on, girl,” the woman said, gently pushing her forward. She looked back up at the woman, then at Quinn, but did not move.

He took a breath. Held out his hand.

It seemed to be the signal she was waiting for, and she came to him, slotting her small hand into his. It was cool and dry, and he folded his fingers around hers carefully and nodded to her as he opened the door.

Neither of them looked back again.


End file.
